Amblin' Towards Armageddon

THE FOUNDERS WERE WRONG....AND RIGHT.

2010-10-25T17:44:00.004-04:00

The title of this post is meant to be provacative. But it is also true. Let's start with a simple idea and one really that cannot be legitimately disputed: Anyone who tells you they know what "The Founding Fathers" were thinking and that they have some inside track as to what they believed is lying. Plain and simple.

Anyone with the least bit of common sense can see that. There is just no way that anyone can say that they know clearly and unequivically what "The Founding Fathers" thought or wanted, because anyone with the least bit of common sense would notice that there is just no such thing as a monolithic group called "The Founding Fathers." So when you ascribe to "The Founding Fathers" this singular vision for what the United States was and should be, you are just lying out your ass because that never existed.

This is particularly troublesome for conservatives who seem to believe that they have some direct spiritual tie to "The Founding Fathers" and that they know exactly what TFFs wanted, just like they know exactly what God wants and everyone else is simply wrong. But, point out to them that the statement they cherry-picked from, say, Thomas Jefferson is not consistent with other statements Jefferson may have made, and they will state that 1) Jefferson never said that, 2) if he did he didn't mean it, and 3) you're nothing but a Nazi for pointing out that Jefferson contradicted himself.

Recently, for instance, that renowned Constitutional scholar Christine O'Donnell went to absurd lengths trying to deny separation of church and state. Leaving aside her hapless reasoning that it is not a tenet of The Constitution because the phrase as written is not directly written there, the Conservative Never Ever Right came to her defense arguing that she was not claiming that The Establishment Clause - the very first line of the First Amendment - was not there (she did, actually), but that her interpretation of The Constitution was an originalist one, and that those damn Liberals thought so little of TFFs that they would argue that 200 years worth of legal precedence had greater meaning than TFFs.

Now, we're talking Christine O'Donnell here, and let's face it, she has no idea what an originalist interpretation of The Constitution is. But let us discuss the idea of an originalist interpretation - just what does that mean exactly? That we should accept The Constitution on its face as complete and immutable? I doubt you will find many minorities who will willingly give up their right to vote so that we can have that originalist interpretation reinstated, conservative or otherwise. Yes, I know, that was granted by amendment and the only way to change the law of the land should be by amendment only - or so say conservatives, but only when it is not them doing the changing of the law.

For instance, conservatives never bring up the fact that The Constitution of the US was and is a compromise document, the most egregious example of that being the 3/5ths Compromise. Are we to ignore that? James Madison - The Father of The Constitution - placed within The Constitution a compromise which made a black man worth 3/5s of a white one. But, I hear conservatives shouting, he didn't mean it! We fixed it later through amendment! We gave blacks the right to vote through amendment! True, eventually The Constitution included the right to vote for all men and women, but the change didn't come because the Original Constitution allowed for it. It came because of the struggle and sacrifice of individuals willing to fight for it. An originalist interpretation of The Constitution would have kept out voting for all minorities forever.

And on the other side of the coin, we have Coroprate Personhood. The same conservatives who argue that we should follow their originalist interpretation of The Constitution - those very same folks who shout about how those damn Liberals are making up the law as they go - they will defend to the death this concept of corporate personhood - that somehow a corporation has the same rights as an individual, but with none of the responsibilities of the individual. This idea of Coroprate Personhood which came into being because a law clerk added a word which shouldn't have been added to a decision - THIS! Conservatives will defend as right and proper!

Madison - The Father of The Constitution - feared Democracy. Jefferson believed in a small agrarian society. Both men were dead set against having a standing army. Patrick Henry was supposedly a money-grubbing little worm of a man who barely passed law exams. Washington was a wealthy land-owner who wanted more than anything to keep his patrician's place. Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr wanted all able-bodied free men and women to be able to vote. There is no originalist interpretation of The Constitution. TFFs didn't know exactly what they wanted when it was written. Stating that it should remain static because you believe you know what they thought and what they wanted and that you are somehow right while everyone else is wrong is just the most appalling act of hubris.

ROSS DOUTHAT APOLOGIZES FOR TEA BAGGERS

2010-10-18T20:20:00.004-04:00

Ross Douthat, one of the two conservative columnists that write regularly for the New York Times - interesting The Times has two conservatives while it seems that papers like the Washington Times have no Liberal columnists, but that's another article - apologized, as in the ancient Greek use of the word, for The Tea Party in a column he wrote on October 17th. He began his column with a supposed survey by a former CATO Institute intern that shows that only 5% of the signs she saw were about race or religion, and only 1% about the President's birth certificate. Considering the fact that our surveyor surveyed only 250 signs at a Tea Party Rally on the Washington Mall, one has to wonder from the beginning just how serious a survey we are talking about here. Nor do we have any survey at all as to what those not carrying signs thought. But to Douthat, this is evidence that Tea Baggers aren't racists and bigots, because, really, only 5% of their signs out of 250 made those kinds of statements and so Liberals are just being mean to these poor Tea Baggers. So Douthat sets up his little strawman and knocks it down handily.

But let's take his other points one at a time - The Tea Party isn't really driving the Republican Party over the political cliff. Douthat's argument here is that there are just so many great Tea Party candidates who aren't Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino. Why, you have such stalwart examples of conservative rectitude as Marco Rubio - who has no problem using the corporate credit card to pay his personal bills - Ken Buck - who believes if you are a woman who was raped, it was probably your fault and you should be forced to live with the consequences, and Pat Toomey - who admittedly isn't as extreme as the other two, he just wishes to do away with most social programs and believes shipping jobs overseas is really a very good idea. So Douthat's reasonable Tea Baggers are only reasonable in regards to their completely insane counterparts.

The Tea Partiers are not puppets of the Sinister Rich - Really? Let's think about this for a minute. Because the movement began as a possible grassroots movement, it cannot possibly be a puppet now? He's right about the Koch brothers funding every single conservative movement since the dawn of time, but just because they haven't been as effective up til now doesn't change the fact that they finally hit on a winning formula. Keep throwing shit against the wall long enough, sooner or later some of it is going to stick. Douthat's defense is that they started out as a grassroots movement even though every single Tea Bagger candidate is a Republican. Are we to believe that only Republicans care about the deficit? Because if he does expect that, how does he explain that the largest defeicits have been created by Republicans? Nor does he explain Dick Armey or the Koch brothers and the money they are pouring into the Tea Bagger movement. Again, we are simply to take his word.

The Tea Parties are not just the John Birch Society all over again - This is a throwback to the first point Douthat makes: that because there just aren't enough signs, they can't be racist, bigoted bastards. Of course, he does nothing to try to explain the hatred against muslims and the hatred against the Islamic Community Center in New York. Of course this doesn't come from people looking for a scapegoat just like the Red Scare of the '50's. No, Tea Baggers would never do such a thing. Why, they're saints and would never behave in any way that is opposite to The Constitution of the United States. Douthat seems to forget the First Amendment.

And, finally, The Tea Party are not hypocrites because there are two candidates who have statements that could be construed as possibly, actually presenting their true position. But that's the point, isn't it? There are 138 Tea Bagger candidates - every single one of them is running as a Republican. Every single one of them - to get elected - have disavowed their statesments concerning privatization of Social Security and the dissolution of Medicare. The great mass of the Tea Baggers - the rank and file, if you will - may believe that their candidates will not privatize Social Secuirty and dissolve Medicare, but that is the position all of their candidates have expressed at one time or another. And while they have disavowed their past statements, none of them have unequivically stated that they will not do what they have professed in the past.

Some may believe Douthat has admirably defended the Tea Baggers, but, really, all he has done is shown that he's somewhat adept at twisting arguments so he can defend the position that he wants to defend and not the actualy facts. Just like most Tea Baggers.

GO GALT ALREADY!

2010-10-15T23:37:00.005-04:00

Recently, Greg Manikow, an economist in the Bush Adminsitration, wrote an editorial stating that if the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 1% were to expire, he would not work as hard as he presently does since any income above $250,000 would be taxed a total of 4% more than it is presently taxed. This argument has been around for awhile now: Bill O'Reilly made it a few years ago; there was a brief movement of individuals who all promised to go Galt over this very issue. All I can say is: Go Galt, already, and leave the rest of us alone, for Christ's sake!

Honestly, how many of these people are actually that important that we cannot live without them? Is Greg Manikow such a great economist that there is no one to replace him? How about Bill O'Reilly? Given that O'Reilly is being eclipsed by the Insane Clown Posse that is Glenn Beck, who is going to miss him? None of these people are irreplaceable? Give me a break.

The one overriding principle of any place of work is that no one is irreplaceable. No one. Assume for a moment that Manikow stops taking every speaking assignment offered. Will there be no one to take that speaking assignment? Hardly. Or O'Reilly stops writing his books. Given the lack of thought or empathy that goes into his turgid prose, most of us would be happy if he stopped writing them altogether. There is nothing these two call their work that is of such a singular creation that we could not live without it. Neither Manikow nor O'Reilly is that unique a talent.

This, by the way, is the problem with Atlas Shrugged in the first place. It presupposes that there are some individuals that are just so unique that the world cannot live without them. Now, assuming this is so, conservatives have a problem; basically, one of contradiction. If there are individuals so unique that we cannot do without them, then not everyone can be one of these individuals. If, on the other hand, as conservatives constantly harp, everyone can do it, then these individuals do not exist.

The reality is is that overall, there are very few people the world cannot do without. In almost every instance of scientific discovery, it appears there were individuals on the same track as those who are given credit for their scientific discoveries. So under the proper circumstances, scientific, social, communal progress would continue, perhaps a bit differently, but it would continue.

So if Bill O'Reilly or Greg Manikow, or Pam Geller (who produces even less than these other two do) were to stop working altogether, nothing untoward would happen. The US would continue on it's way; there would still be bad economic policy put forth by some other RWNJ; there would still be stupid commentary on Faux News; and there would still be ignorant RWNJ blogs.

TEA BAG AMERICA

2010-09-29T18:22:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post titled “What If the Tea Baggers Win?” In that post I discussed what the optimistic scenarios were concerning a Tea Bag victory come November, with the Tea Baggers basically either at odds with their traditional conservative leadership or at odds with the rest of Congress. Either way, a victory – albeit a minor one – for common sense.

But there was a pessimistic scenario as well. What would the US look like were the Tea Baggers to win and to be able to effectively implement their policies? What kind of America would that be? Herewith, I present to you Tea Bag Utopia.

In the Tea Bag version of the US, education will be mostly religious, private education affordable only by the very few wealthy people left. Science will be relegated to a minor position within the “education” community and teachers will be required to adhere to strict standards of conservative comportment which will ignore facts, will treat religious belief as the only truth, and will punish those who choose to try to think freely. Book burning and banning will be commonplace. Believing other than the Tea Bag Orthodoxy will kake you an enemey of the State. (See positions of the Texas Board of Education; Christine O’Donnell; Sarah Palin; Daniel Webster; Rand Paul)

Pre-marital sex will be a crime. Masturbation will be a criminal act, punishable by stoning. Out-of-wedlock pregnancies will sky-rocket. Child- abuse will be protected by law, and the abused will be considered the criminal. Incest and rape will be considered no more than minor felonies, while the victims of incest and rape will be ostracized, ridiculed, and demonized. The sins of the criminal shall be passed onto the victim. (See the position of Ron Johnston; Sharon Angle; Christine O’Donnell; Sarah Palin; Daniel Webster; Rand Paul).

Being gay will be a criminal act. Being an adulterer will be a criminal act, unless you are one of the elite few. Being a woman with a job will be a criminal act; again, unless you are one of the elite few. Women will be subservient to their husbands; will be unable to divorce; and forced to remain in abusive relationships. (See the position of Daniel Webster; Newt Gingrich).

If you are a person of African, Caribbean or Latin descent, you will be forced back into slavery if you’re black, because as everyone knows, slavery was good for Blacks, or deported for being Latino. Nor will you be allowed to go to any store or restaurant you wish to go to, and racism will be allowed to be institutionalized once again. (See position of Trent Franks; Carl Palidino; Rand Paul; John McCain; Michelle Bachman; Sharon Angle; Joe Arpiao; Jan Brewer; the list continues).

Should you be a senior citizen, expect to have no Social Security and no Medicare. These programs will be phased out almost immediately upon the ascension of the Tea Baggers. Poverty amongst seniors will grow to epidemic proportions. (See Position of Sharon Angle; Christine O’Donnell; Sarah Palin; Rand Paul; Newt Gingrich; Ron Johnston; Paul Ryan; etc., etc.).

Poverty in America will explode, as the middle class get squeezed to the breaking point, paying for more and more tax cuts for the wealthy, who will create fewer and fewer jobs in America – since they do not presently create jobs anyway – until the majority of “good” jobs have been outsourced to cheap labor in other parts of the world.. The wealthy will have greater and greater influence on the public dialogue, their pets in the Tea Party Movement doing the bidding of a minority of those considered wealthy. (See WSJ Poll: 2/3 of those making over $250,000 believe taxes on wealthy need to rise).

Healthcare coverage will be non-existent. Insurance companies will be able to drop you from your coverage whenever and however they feel like. Every illness will be considered a pre-existing condition. Every doctor’s visit will be just another opportunity to avoid paying for your coverage. If you are pregnant, do not expect insurance to have to cover pre-natal or post-natal care. If you have a child with a learning disability, do not expect insurance to help with the costs involved in taking care of that child. If you have HIV, do not expect insurance to cover cost of drugs which can prolong your life. Do, however, expect that the Government will come knocking at your door to find out just what sex crime they believe you have committed. (See position of Sharon Angle; Christine O’Donnell; Rand Paul).

The Deficit will continue to spiral out of control, fueled by the Wars being fought in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea. As ¾ of the discretionary budget of the United States is already made up of paying for some form of defense spending and the Tea Baggers have stated quite clearly that they intend to actually grow the defense budget, this goes without saying. Cutting out every program presently found in our Government except Defense spending will not dent the Deficit. Growing the Defense Budget will simply continue to raise the Deficit. (See position of Sarah Palin; Rand Paul; Daniel Webster; Ron Johnston).

Religious intolerance will continue to grow. The Government of the United States will become a Theocracy. The Old Testament of the Bible will be the only law unto the land, with those not adhering to its teachings being ostracized and attacked for their heretical beliefs. Except, of course, if you can pay your way out. State-supported religion will be introduced and enforced much like the State-supported religion in Saudi Arabia, with religious police coming into your bedroom, spying in your windows, demanding access to your private life. The security apparatus of the State will continue to grow, as the security apparatus of the State will be one of the State’s few remaining functions. Any deviation from Tea Bag Orthodoxy will make you an Enemy of the State. (See position of John McCain; Sarah Palin; Christine O’Donnell; Ron Johnston; Daniel Webster).

Given that these are the professed positions of the so-called leaders of the Tea Bagger Movement, one needs to ask just what in this scenario appeals to people? These positions have all been put forward by the people mentioned above. Given all this, are we to believe that the people going to these rallies truly understand what they are calling for? Because if we do believe that, our country as we know it – a country that purports to believe in freedom and justice – will be neither free nor just.

What Happens If Tea Baggers Win?

2010-09-28T17:34:00.003-04:00

Imagine if you will that the House leader calls a vote for what is considered an important piece of legislation by the party. But instead of having a clear majority, the leader finds there is a fight going on with a large and vocal minority not only holding up the bill but in some instnaces choosing to side with the minority party against it. Is this Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, you may wonder, given how badly Democrats have done at behaving like Democrats and voting for the poor, the working and the middle classes? No, it's John Boehner - or possibly Eric Cantor - vs. the Tea Baggers.

The Tea Baggers - I call them that since they self-identified as such - consider themselves the only ones who know the true meaning of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, even though most of them have never bothered to read either document. They, like their GO(B)P brethren, hate Government and anything to do with Government, so, naturally, they believe they should be the ones running the very institutions they hate. They hate Social Security, even though many Tea Baggers are on Social Security; they hate any kind of Govenrment funded Healthcare, unless it's their Medicare, they hate any and all entitlement programs, unless they are the programs which pave their streets and essentially make their lives easier. As an example, I give you Sharon Angle, who has no problem complaining about public healthcare while, it turns out in one of many fits of irony, she avails herself of it. http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/28/angle-government-health-care/

And if that's not enough, Tea Baggers demand to have access to your bedroom. Don't have sex, don't be gay, go to the one true church (whatever the hell that means), and don't believe you can be who and what you are if you happen to be different from their belief as to who or what you should be.

Nor should you try at all to become educated. Education is for people who think, and being a Tea Bagger, that leaves most of them out. Science and Math are Liberal conspiracies against God and American Exceptionalism. The earth is 6,000 years old, evolution is just a theory, and Global Climate Change is just another form of taxation. So believeth the stupid. See Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell.

So back to our House scenario: either way, the GOBP loses. I'm sure the Party of No believes that once they get elected the Tea Baggers will fall into line. Perhaps, perhaps not. If they do, they will have very short political careers, as the likelihood that the Tea Baggers who turned out for these candidates turning out for them again will be close to nil. If they don't, then they will achieve none of their goals, as the likelihood that all of the GOBP will go insane, while greater than the first scenario, is hopefully also nil.

These are the optimistic outcomes should the Tea Baggers win come November. I give these outcomes a 50 - 50 chance. The pessimistic outcome is one no sane person should have to contemplate. Imagine a US run by Tea Baggers - debt spiraling out of control, social services non-existent, social protections non-existent, wars everywhere, religion mandated in the classroom, anyone who is different being hounded. The Tea Baggers speak about being for positive change, yet nothing they want is positive.

If we wish to move forward in this country, we must realize now that though they are our fellow citizens, they believe more in their ideology than they do in the concept of citizenship. They do not see any common cause. And that, by itself, should frighten anyone who has even half a brain in their head.

TEA BAG ECONOMICS

2010-09-17T17:20:00.002-04:00

I am not an economist, nor do I pretend to be one. In point of fact, I don't consider myself to be particularly good at math or economics. Given that, I expect I shall be roundly attacked after writing this by people who consider themselves to be much better at economics than myself yet who will be exceptionally and unequivacally wrong in just about their entire analysis.

How can I say that, given that I have made it clear I am not an economist? Because I intend to discuss Tea Bag Economics - the economic theory which plainly states that you can continue to cut taxes without cutting the spending of any of your - meaning Tea Party - sacred programs. Let's start with the basics.

The Tea Party claims to be against deficit spending and the deficit in general. They demand that government cut spending. Yet when asked what exactly they will cut, they mention programs which have marginal impact on spending. For instance, foreign assistance. A great deal is made about how much of our tax dollars are being spent overseas for foreign assistance, yet if you look at the figures, foreign assistance doesn't even register. It barely makes any of the graphs. Or let's talk about the Department of Health and Human Services - one Department Tea Baggers like to kick around. The Budget for this Department is $78.7 Billion. That's a decrease of 1.7%. Now, no one is saying that $78.7 Billion is not a great deal of money. But here's the thing - the Defense Department Budget is nearly 10 times that amount. In fact, the Defense Department Budget is 68% of all discretionary Federal spending - it is the major beneficiary of income tax dollars. Not Social Security, not Medicare or Medicaid. Those programs are paid for by separate taxes, not income taxes (although the argument will be that all taxes are income taxes - and in a way that is correct, but misleading).

So, when you break it all down, you have the majority of income taxes - as we generally regard them - going to Defense spending. Now, the obvious question is, will Tea Baggers support cutting the Defense budget? To hear them talk, the answer is no. So just how serious are they about deficit reduction?

Not very, as it happens, as they will also not support paying for any of this spending. How else can you explain their constant admonishments against income taxes? Assuming that they wish to have the smallest government possible and we do away with every single department and program within the Federal Government except the bare minimum, even in that Tea Bagger paradise, the present rate of income taxes would not reduce the deficit nor in fact provide the revenue necessary to continue present trends in defense spending, interest on the national debt and simply running a bare-bones government. The math does not work.

And with the Tea Baggers calling for even less in tax rates and demanding that revenue be even lower, there is no intellectually honest way to reduce the deficit, to pay off our debt. Doing away with every program in the Federal Government except debt repayment and Defense will still not bring us out of deficit as the money coming in is less than the money going out. And Tea Baggers aren't honest enough to admit that lowering taxes will in no way improve that equation.

So when Jim DeMint or Rand Paul or Christine O'Donnell or Sarah Palin tell you that maintaining tax cuts for the rich will not affect the deficit and they have a plan to reduce the deficit without raising taxes, they are simply lying. They care more about their ideological dislike of taxes than they do about the health of the nation.

THE NATIONAL REVIEW: CHAMPION OF TREASON

2007-12-04T17:23:00.000-05:00

I have just realized why I ignore reading the National Review: Recent stories about all those lying Arabs, how Henry Hyde was just a wonderful man, how the NIE is obviously wrong because it does not agree with their already quite biased beliefs. You just can't read this Shit without getting a case of hives. This is not journalism or even legitimate commentary or opposition; The National Review has forsaken any intellectual honesty simply to commit treason against the United States of America and The Constitution of the United States of America.

Do you think that's harsh? Really? Then why doesn't The National Review, which had no problem with Bill Bennett calling the NY Times treasonous for writing about black sites outside the US a year after they found out about it not demand that Scooter Libby, Richard Armitage, Dick Cheney, and Robert Novack be tried for treason?

Or perhaps they can explain how it's perfectly all right to demand Clinton's impeachment for getting a blow-job, but wouldn't think of calling for Bush's impeachment for lying us into a War which was illegal in the first place and trying to lie us into a second war without reason or provocation, their smoking gun nothing more than their fever dreams of imperialism? I especially like the accolades to Henry Hyde, a man who had to resign because he was getting his dick waxed outside of his marriage at the same time he was playing high hypocritical priest of morality about Clinton. Right the fuck up there with Newt Gingrich.

And let us not forget their warmongering in Lebanon. They were quite willing to pile on Baeuchamp when he supposedly made up stories; but their warblogger buddy in The Tank; he was just misinformed by those "lying Arabs."

It's quite clear that The National Review will say or do whatever it takes to get their position to be accepted as the only position to have. The National Review cares nothing about truth, facts, or reality. This is not a magazine which provides clear critical thought, whether right or left. It is one part of the propaganda arm of an organization trying to destroy The United States.

IS GOD CHRISTIAN?

2007-09-26T16:48:00.001-04:00

Or Muslim; or Jewish; or Buddhist; or any other Religion for that matter? It's a fundamental (pardon the pun) question, which seems to have only one answer: of course, he is. He is all of the above. If you believe in God.

Let me just start out by saying, I'm an agnostic. I have my doubts about God, and he/she/it has his/her/its doubts about me. Be that as it may, I can still ask the above question and come up with a reasonable and reasoned answer. And there's the rub, because if you are a Devout Christian, Muslim, Jew, whatever, it has nothing to do with a reasoned answer and everything to do with your faith being better than the other guy's faith. For instance, reason tells us that an omnipotent, omnipresent God created all things, which means he created all faiths and therefore God is part of all faiths. Simple, clear, concise. But bring that question and logic to a true believer, and they care nothing for it, because what it all comes down to is an unwavering faith which does not believe in either logic or using one's brain for anything other than keeping space between your ears.

For instance, abstinence. The Catholic Church states in its doctrines that one must be abstinent, even in marriage, unless your purpose in having intercourse is procreation. How many Catholics follow this doctrine. Yet these same Catholics have no problem condemning contraception and sexual education. Their faith overrides their logic. It even goes to extremes, where an African Bishop recently stated that he knew for a fact that condoms from Europe were being deliberately infected with the AIDS virus, and the only protection against AIDS was abstinence. How much of a conspiracy nut do you have to be to believe that European condom manufacturers are trying to kill you? If you don't believe this story, here's the link.

Or we can discuss Bill Donahue of the Catholic League. Admittedly, an easy target; why anyone believes Donahue is a valid representatvie of the Catholic Faith is beyond me. Yet even when he makes outrageous claims about Hollywood being run by secular jews who like pederasty, you hear nary a peep from mainstream Catholicism. Why is that, I wonder? Not really. What I'm sure I would be told is that we must tolerate even the intolerable. Except, of course, if you're gay. No; the truth is is that Donahue serves a very useful purpose: He gives voice to positions the Church believes in but thinks would mar it's alraedy tarnished image. He can be the voice of intolerance which the Church so desperately needs, without the Church actually having to admit to its hate.

The same can be said of Evangelicals: they just don't worry about how they look in other people's eyes, because,let's face it, you don't believe like they do, you're going to Hell anyway. Intolerance of others seems to be the common overriding theme of most religions. That and the fact that you are damned. Which explains Muslim extremists who see nothing wrong with suicide bombing, or Evangelical extremists who see nothing wrong with murdering Doctors and Nurses who perform procedures they do not agree with. Or even pharmicists who believe that their moral judgement overrides your rights.

It would take excessive amounts of time to list all the extreme and horrendous acts which are perpetrated in the name of a specific Religion, and I just don't have time to do that. Others have been working long and hard in that area. Suffice it to say that Religious extremism continues unabted and, in fact, seems to be gaining momentum. When Shia kill Sunni, Sunni kill Shia, Evangelicals create videogames where the main focus is to convert or kill so-called non-believers, where The Church denies contraception and abortion yet does nothing to eliviate the very problems which occur becasue of their approbation, where Jews kill Palestinians in their belief that they are the chosen people; what more can one say. I wonder, does God ask himself, Is this what I created? Is this what I intended? Why? I wonder if he has an answer?

MITCH McCONNELL AND JOHN BOEHNER ARE ASSHOLES!

2007-09-13T22:05:00.000-04:00

And it goes without saying that George W. Bush is an AssHole. But McConnell and Boehner proved the mettle of their assholity this very day when Boehner stated that the death of over 3 thousand US troops and the maiming of at least 30 thousand others was a "small price" to pay to keep us safe from an imaginary enemy who didn't attack us on 9-11. To say the least, that makes Boehner a major asshole. I wonder when he'll get around to apologizing to all the family members of the dead annd wounded. Or will this be just another case of IARIYAR?

Then you have Senator McConnell - a true Kentucky Gentleman (a term I use extremely loosely). On NPR today, on All Things Considered, Harry Reed was asked about General Petraus' report to Congress about Iraq. Reed spoke thoughtfully and without personal rancor about the situation in Iraq, about how it would be a bipartisan effort to change the situation, and how he hoped that both sides would find a middle ground.

It was then Mitch McConnell's turn. He was asked if there were any positions on which the Republicans could agree with the Democrats. Senator McConnel, being the Kentucky Gentleman he is, stated rather matter-of-factly that all he could see was that the Democrats were rushing to surrender as quickly as possible to the terrorists! I guess this is the high-minded civility the Republicans are always demanding that the Democrats practice! Just a lovely man!

But this is the Republican way, after all. All that's left for them is to politicize the War, to pretend that they are somehow manly men who will fight to the death, even though they are not the ones fighting. Nor are they the ones dying. It's fair to say that some of the Democrats may also in fact be politicizing the War, but the question becomes "Which is better - To politicize the War so that more US soldiers die, or to politicize the War so that more US soldiers come home alive?" I know which one I would choose. We know which one Mssrs. McConnell and Boehner have chosen.

BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

2007-08-08T22:55:00.000-04:00

On numerous occassions lately, I have heard the Hardly Ever Right whine about how those who do not agree with them have Bush Derangement Syndrome. BDS they call it and declare that we (those who do not agree with them) must be somehow deranged and that this derangement is because of our hatred of George W. Bush. It is because of our hatred of Bush that we (those who do not agree with the Hardly Ever Right) decry the use of torture by our Government, the loss of our rights, the Republican obstructionism in Congress, the continuous scandals concerning these Republican lawmakers (and yes, there are Democratic lawmakers who also have committed crimes; its just that the Republicans seem to do it enmass and organized according to party) the War in Iraq, the continued ideological stupidity of the Hardly Ever Right when it comes to healthcare and nearly everything else;all of this is because of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Now, is it just me, or might it not be more reasonable to say that the Bush Derangement Syndrome that The Hardly Ever Right seems to be believe in is actually a syndrome that the Hardly Ever Right appears to suffer from (though I use the word suffer here just to point out their ailment. They do not, in fact, suffer. They are quite content to be unbelieveable ignorant.

How incredibly stupid do you have to be to argue that there really are no reasons for the majority of the population of the United States to be upset with not only The Administration but Congress, the Main Stream Media, and the completely corrupt Republican Party? Honestly; is there an arguement here? The Administration does not believe in the rule of law, the Republicans seem to care less than The Administration, as they care much more about ridiculous ideology than they do about doing what is in the best interest of the Country, and the MSM carries water for whoever is in power. Yet the so-called intellectuls of the Hardly Ever Right who complain about BDS cannot for the life of them see anything wrong. Obviously, if you are a member of this improbable fraternity (and unfortunately there are quite a few members), you do not believe in using your brain for anything other than keeping space between your ears.

As an example: Recently, a member of The National Review wrote about BDS and Scalia-Thomas Derangement Syndrome. Now, I cannot, in fact, make much arguement about Scalia and Thomas, though both are rather incompetent in my opinion (but I'm not a Law Scholar), but this particular member then goes on to complain about an arguement put forth in the NYT about Cheney and how Cheney believes in a Unitary Executive and somehow has been pushing for it since he became VP. The arguement by this particular member is that the author of this arguement makes some specious claims concerning Cheney and Cheney becoming VP and then pushing for the Unitary Executive. Now, here's the thing: Cheney, while he worked in the Nixon White House, believed quite strongly in a Unitary Executive. Whether he had some over-arching master plan is not the question. But given that he was put in charge of the Search Committee for the VP, are we supposed to be naive enough to believe that when he saw an opportunity to actualy implement what he believes, he did not take it? How stupid are we if that is what we actually believe? How dishonest are you when you put forth just such a premise?

WHEN THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT....

2007-07-11T16:16:00.000-04:00

The gents and ladies at the National Review, those hardy he-men an women of the Hardly-Ever Right, tell me that I'm overly worried about The Constitutional Crisis presently taking place. That there really is no crisis, what with the President commuting Scooter Libby's sentence, admitting he did something wrong, but it wasn't worth 30 months in jail (though if I remember correctly, they were all quite willing to have Bill Clinton impeached and thrown out of office for lying about a blow job, an offense for which he was never even tried; they're just not quite as worried about someone who was convicted on 2 counts of perjury and 2 counts of obstructing justice who may be lying about the underlying crime of treason). Nor should I worry about the US Attorney scandal because I've been told by the Administration that they had nothing to do with it and that's why they are invoking Executive Privilege. Why, everyone can understand the logic there: We never spoke to these people; so you can't speak to them either. Or maybe it's that we did speak to them, but it had nothing to do with anything, so why would you want to,or....never mind.

On the barely legal side of the equation, we have the Fourth Circuit(?) Court of Appeals saying that you can't use the courts to find out if the Administration broke the Law against you; you have to know they broke the Law against you before you can bring any kind of criminal complaint against them. While I understand the Court's reasoning, I wonder how anyone is supposed to find out if the Administration broke the Law agaisnt them when the group charged with finding that out is the group that broke the Law in the first place (See FBI and Illegal Wiretapping and Justice Department)?

We have as well the Supreme Court saying that if you have loads and loads of money, you can pretty much say whatever you want in a political campaign, but if you're a high school student, don't make any bad jokes because we'll slap you down (if you're Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and the ilk, you can call all your demands for the Deaths of other people bad jokes and the Hardly Ever Right will defend you forever against supposed censorship). And as to Clarence Thomas' concurrent opinion which argues that schools in fact have the obligation to instill a set of common values, it may behoove the individuals arguing that position, including Clarence Thomas, to remember that one of the common values we're supposed to instil is the First Amendment. A sign saying "Bong Hits for Jesus" is considerably less inflammatory than what "The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" said about John Kerry during the last campaign, particularly since all of their allegations were outright lies.

But let us return to The National Review's arguement that The Cosntitution is not in fact in crisis; that this is just hyperbole. What we have is a Congress which just doesn't understand its place, they argue. Interesting assessment, but completely wrong. Congress comes first in The Constitution, not the President. The basic reason for the presidency is that it is easier to deal in foreign affairs with one individual than with 435. That is why the President can propose treaties, but those treaties need to be ratified by Congress (a position, I'm sure, The National Review and the Hardly-Ever Right find irksome). There is no, nor has there ever been, a Unitary President as the Hardly-Ever Right presently argues there is. What's more, their position is so shortsighted that were they to but look down the road a bit, they wouldn't want what they are demanding.

The Hardly-Ever Right's call for a strong, unitary executive is so myopic that it defies logic. Imagine if you will what happens when you have such a figure. The Hardly-Ever Right assumes that were a Democrat to be elected President, they would act with a greater sense of decorum and therefore there would be no problem as the Hardly-Ever Right would simply be the Bully they are and shout him or her down. The Hardly-Ever Right believes in ponies. But back to the topic at hand; if we imagine a smaller government limited only to military and policing and a Unitary President, what remains for that President to do? You need only look at what George W. Bush has done to see what you can expect more of, because let's face it, the next guy (or gal) just can't be as incompetent as this one.

IMPEACH THE BASTARDS!

2007-07-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the Fourth of July: Independence Day! And for I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, it was a great day. For the rest of us, not so much.

If you happen to value your independence and freedom, this week may have seen the strongest statement by this Administration and its enablers that your freedom and independence are not considered worth one wit. George Bush, George the Third (an honorific which I gave him when I thought it was just a joke), made it plain that he really doesn't care much about the Law or The Constitution. It's quite simple really: The Law found Libby guilty, a jury of his peers. The judge sentenced Libby according to the guidelines set down by the Justice Department. And George the Third looked at the sentence, agreed the Law had indeed been broken, and said that that didn't matter, because he, George the Third, thought the sentence too harsh. So he gave Libby a free pass. George W. Bush basically said that the Law is what he says it is! That he is the final arbiter of what is and is not legal. George Bush has declared himself King. Or more accurately, Dictator.

Others have written far more eloquently about this than I have. Read Glenn Greenwald, read Atrios, read Digby, read anyone but the idiotic hypocrites over on the Right. Not only are they hypocrites, arguing that Libby did nothing wrong except what Bill Clinton did (except Bill Clinton was never brought to trial nor convicted), they do not realize just how effectively they have damaged the rule of Law. Because, let's be honest here, Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a treason case. If Libby would have come clean, the people Fitzgerald would have prosecuted would have been prosecuted for acts of treason against the US Government and the American people. The Administration and its enablers have commited treason, and they don't even realize the door they have opened!

It is self-evident that George Bush believes he is above the Law. It is self-evident that Dick Cheney believes that he is above the Law. It is self-evident that the enablers of this Administration, the MSM, the Republican Leadership, the Religious Right Leaders believe that they are above the Law. Are we, the American People, ready for the slippery slope that this president has placed us upon? If we do not act to curtail this power-grab, what will we do when the next president decides that he can more flagrantly ignore the Law? Are we ready to abdicate our rights to the government? The reason we have the government we do is so that no one group or person could become a tyrant. The Repiublican Leadership and its enablers chose to install a tyrant. Are they ready for when that tyrant turns on them?

We have but few means of recourse. Congress must do its duty. Impeach him! Impeach Cheney! Throw the whole criminal cabal in jail before it's too late! Do it now while we still can.

YOU CANNOT SPEAK UNLESS YOU HAVE THE MONEY

2007-06-27T09:22:00.000-04:00

The Supreme Court recently ruled that if you are a corporation or union, you may pay to have political commercials put on which, while not directly calling for you to vote for a candidate, can indirectly influence your vote just before the election. They deemed this to be a Free Speech issue, protected by the First Amendment, the arguement coming down simply to money equals speech. Bench Memos at The National Review applauded this decision as a victory for Free Speech.

The Court also found that a high school student could indeed be punished for holding up a rather nonsensical sign at a high school function because he violated school rules and his speech was not in fact protected under the First Amendment. Bench Memos applauded this ruling as well, arguing that those damn high school kids just don't have the same rights as Corporations. Bench Memos, it seems, has no problem with Corporate Free Speech. It's just individual Free Speech they don't like.

I found one particular defense of the ruling in the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case completely nonsensical. The following is a quote from Clarence Thomas to defend his concurrent opinion in the case:

"I am afraid that our jurisprudence now says that students have a right to speak in schools except when they don’t—a standard continuously developed through litigation against local schools and their administrators. In my view, petitioners could prevail for a much simpler reason: As originally understood, the Constitution does not afford students a right to free speech in public schools."

Now, I'm no legal scholar. Nor did I read the entire opinion by Justice Thomas, but on its face, this is ridiculous. I did read the beginning of Justice Thomas' opinion, and even he concedes that the public school system did not exist until the 1800s, so saying that the Constitution did not originally afford students a right to free speech in public schools is absurd as there were no public schools at the time!

But beyond that, if we follow Justice Thomas' logic, he should not be handing down opinions as The Constitution as originally understood does not afford Justice Thomas any rights as a citizen. Nor does it afford women any rights as citizens. In point of fact, as originally understood, The Constitution disenfranchises a significant portion of the population. Now, while the good folks at Bench Memos may believe that that would be a good thing, I would beg to differ. Justice Thomas, as well as the four who concurred with him and Bench Memos, is wrong; plain and simple. Their position in this case is against individual liberty and for Corporatism. Even were we to read The Constitution as Charles Beard interpreted it, it is evident that The Bill of Rights was meant as a protection of Individual Liberty, not corporate liberty. It does not take a legal scholar to point out that the Tenth Amendment provides that all rights not enumerated within The Constitution to the national government revert to the people. That includes the right to put up nonsensical signs, even at a school function.

But the more important point is that Bench Memos feels this is a win for conservatives, if by conservatives we mean people who put Corporate interests before those of individual interests. This is in fact the position of the modern conservative movement - we should not protect individual rights, we should protect corporate ones. Look at the present immigration debate. Those damn dirty illegal immigrants are coming to the US to take jobs from American citizens, according to The National Review and others. But not once has The National Review stated that corporate sponsorship of illegal immigration is one of its root causes. They do not call for punishment of the corporation which employs illegal immigrants; they blame the immigrants for wanting to create a better life for themselves and their families. Something which all of our forefathers wanted to do in this country.

Or we can look to the present administration in regards to the concept of protecting the corporation over the individual. The Administration believes that it's dealings are sacrosanct and must be kept secret at all costs, while individuals' right to privacy (another issue the conservative movement does not believe in - just look at how they would like to be able to tell you what you can and cannot do in your own bedroom as a consenting adult) are simply swept out of the way as The Administration sees fit, and the Conservative Movement goes into paroxyms of ecstasy at the manliness of these cowards. You need only look at nearly every major institution of our Government under this administration to see that the underlying position taken by the Modern Conservative Movement is to protect and strengthen Corporate control while weakening individual freedoms. The Modern Conservative Movement does not believe in individual freedom. They do not believe that we can, in fact, make our own decisions. Unfortunately, they seem to be correct about at least 35% of the population. Most importantly, they are doing everything in their power to deny us what freedoms we have and to allow the entities that they believe to be the only ones with any rights to further manipulate us. The Modern Conservative Movement hates individual liberty.

AMERICA THE PSYCHOTIC! PART 3

2007-02-11T14:27:00.000-05:00

In previous posts, I wrote about the media and the rightwing noise machine. Nothing I said was particularly original or different; there are hundreds of other bloggers all pretty much pointing out the same thing. At the end of that post, I also stated that I would be writing about the worse elements in our society which the Rightwing has chosen to ally itself with. One of those elements, and probably the most controversial of those is the Revelationist Movement.

The reason I consider the Reveletaionist Movement to be the most controversial is that unlike the Hate groups, which are not mainstream and are not considered to be viable, the Revelationist Movement is considered to be somewhat mainstream and a viable political as well as religious movement. You need only look at our President and what he has claimed in the past to see just how mainstream this movement is.

Again, there are many bloggers who have already taken great ains to point out just how perfidious this movement is. Talk to Action consistently tallies the Revelationist movement and its abuses. Crooks and Liars also regularly illuminates the insanity of this movement.

Why do I call this group insane? To put it quite simply, they act one way during the day, but believe and pray for something else. They act like your neightbors. They may even be friendly towards you most of the time. Yet given their beliefs, they are really only being nice to you because they believe you are damned to hell and doomed, just like any animal. Therefore, in their way of thinking, it really doesn't matter whether they are nice to you or not. You're dead anyway. And the only reason they are nice to you is because you always treat your animals nicely before you slaughter them.

For what else is their belief in Revelations, but the slaughter of all people except those who are to be raptured. If you are not one of the chosen, you will spend seven years on earth which will be like Hell, and all the unbelievers will either convert to the one true faith or be slaughtered. It is a violent end to everyone who doesn't believe as they do. It has very little to do with the teachings of Jesus.

So why is it a problem that these people believe as they do. Again, they place their belief in Revelations above all other beliefs. They act in a manner to hasten the The Rapture, to hasten the End Times and the conversion or death of all the rest of us. Which means, they don't believe in Global Warming, they want violence in the Middle East, and they do not tolerate any beliefs other than their own.

The problem again occurs when it comes to politics. The initial premise of our society was that a multiplicity of sects and factions would keep one sect or faction from becoming overly powerful. Up to now, this has more or less worked. But with the convergence of the Rightwing Noise Machine, the Incestuous Entrenched MSM, and the Revelationists, you no longer have a single sect or faction trying to dominate all the others, you have a single faction made up of disparate elements trying to dominate American Political Discourse. None of these elements by themselves can dominate the discourse, but together they make up a significant minority in the country.

The Revelationists are not by themselves a significant minority. They are a large minority, making up somewhere in the nature of a quarter of the population. Add to this your run-of-the-mill conservative, and other disaffected elements who wish to blame others for their failings, and that minority grows. The power-brokers in the MSM and the Rightwing Noise Machine with the help of the leaders of the Revelationist Movement bring their minions to bear n the Political process. The problem, of course, is that the Power Brokers believe they control the process. And at this time, it seems they do. But what happens when this coalition of the intolerant falls apart, which it will at some point. What will be left of our country when the intolerant have completely gutted our rights and freedoms because of the conviction in their own beliefs?

In the next section of this thought experiment, I shall continue to discuss the other misguided elements of our society.

AMERICA THE PSYCHOTIC! PART 2

2007-02-09T08:31:00.000-05:00

Last time I spoke generally about the irrelevance of the Media and how this plays into the advancing US psychosis. To reiterate briefly, The World burns, and we obsess about nothing. Like individual psychotic episodes, the US is disengaged from Reality. There appears to be a collective disconnect from what is actually happening and what we believe or wish to happen.

To continue now with the Media, which is after all supposedly our collective conscience, let us turn our attention to the conservative media and the triangulation which occurs amongst the Media, the Netroots, and the Political Classes. There is no comparable behavior on the Left-leaning side, thus giving the Right even more sway than they should have. While the so-called Middle obsesses over the death of Anna Nicole Smith, thereby rendering itself irrelevant, the Left shouts against the wind, itself relatively powerless since it does not in fact control much in the way of Media; The Right, on the other hand, uses its massive propaganda machine fueled by the consolidation of media, rightwing think tanks, and a single simple message, that message being that if you disagree, you are unamerican to beat us into submission. And so they get away with setting the Media agenda, which is why a story about Nancy Pelosi and her flights back to her district gains traction. Peter Daou does a much more competent job of explaining this than I have.

This, of course, does not completely explain why America appears to be sliding into Psychosis, but it is one major component of this slide. By marginalizing some of those that differ, you make it easier for others to gain traction. The Right, by itself, does not have, even with this triangulation, the numbers to actually gain control of our political system. They simply control the means to marginalize certain other elements in the debate, and by marginalizing those factions, they allow other factions to rise beyond their natural level.

The Middle level Media are also complicit in this, as they seem to take their marching orders from the Rightwing noise machine. There are numerous blogs which look at how the MSM and Washington have an incestuous relationship. See here and here to name but two. But that incestuous relationship is even more eggregious when you realize that Terry Moran of ABC News is the brother of the blogger Rick Moran of Rightwing Nuthouse. Or that Jonah Goldeberg of National Review owes his position to his mother's rightwing predilections. Or that Katie O'Bernie's husband was the hiring officer for the CPA in Iraq. Or that Campbell Brown recently married Dan Senior, the spokesman for the CPA under Paul Bremer. And this list goes no and on.

Not to say that there has never been cross-pollination of Media and Politics before, but now that cross-pollination fits in very well with the desires of these Media outlets since very few of them are just Media outlets anymore.

There is more to this than what I have written, and I could go on forever, but I just want to point out lastly that the Conservative triangulation cannot in and of itself win elections. It does not have that kind of numbers. It is a minority, albeit a significant one, but by itself it is still a minority. So what it has done is insidious. It has allied itself with elements which do not want America to survive. It has allied itself not with the best this country has to offer, but with the worst. And while those worst elements again, do not make up a majority, there are just enough of them to help push elections over. In the next part of this series, I will be discussing those elements.

UPDATE: If the following is true, then you really have to wonder whether there is any difference between the Rightwing Noise Machine and the MSM.

AMERICA THE PSYCHOTIC! PART 1

2007-02-08T17:29:00.000-05:00

Now, before anyone starts writing me nasty emails about this, as I expect I will finally have some traffic (Thank you Jon Swift for adding me to your blogroll), I believe that there are many excellent aspects of our Country (Yes, I think it's my Country too). As I have argued many times before, the fundamental principles upon which this Country was founded are some of the most high-minded and exceptional principles ever found in History. Our freedom to think and live pretty much how we as individuals determine our lives is something envied by most of the rest of the World as is our economic prosperity. We have created a country both unique for its aspirations and accessible because of its beliefs in opportunity and self-worth. Which makes this all the more horrifying as we allow our country to slide into psychosis.

That may seem harsh. Psychosis. Isn't that insanity? Yes, it is. But you need only look at the News for the day to see that this judgement is not too far off. As of today, 3,114 US soldiers have died in the Occupation of Iraq, and total non-mortal casualties in the neighborhood of47,657. Yet, given these horrendous figures (imagine how long we will be dealing with this mistake of a War), what was the top story of the day? Why, it was Nancy Pelosi and the Republican outrage over the aircraft put at her disposal to travel home to her district! The third most powerful figure in our Government, and Republican lawmakers were upset about the aircraft that was to be placed at her disposal to go home! And, of course, this is what the News Media deemed to be an important story. (Update: as I write this, the new breaking story is the death of Anna Nicole Smith. This story is considered so big that Keith Olbermann, not one usually associated with tabloid journalism, spent nearly half his show on it: a new low for MSNBC.) And the top story the previous two days was the Lust in Space story; an astronaut who drove some 900 miles to supposedly kill her supposed rival for a fellow astronaut.

So the so-called MSM adds nothing to the conversation. While the World struggles with poverty, violence, natural disasters, and even their own political scandals, which actually pertain to what is happening in the countries in question, the US spends like a drunken sailor and gossips about the death of a person who was famous for being famous. The Main-Stream Media should be considered irrelevant. End of Part 1.

IRAN; THE SCAPEGOAT AND THE EXCUSE!

2007-02-01T17:57:00.000-05:00

It has become abundantly clear that BushCo intends to force a military confrontation with Iran, whether a pre-emptive air strike or an all-out ground war is simply the question. The Assistant Secretary of State has been making noises about the so-called Iran threat and the proof they have, recent reports concerning the attack on US soldiers in Karbala have been blamed on Iran, though no proof has been presented. And the MSM has quite simply decided to follow along, though at least this time there seems to be some scepticism.

So why now? Admittedly, Bush has called Iran one of the "Axis of Evil" (odd that given that Iran is a working democracy and actually allows women rights which they do not receive from our allies in the region e.g. Saudi Arabia) for awhile now, but the rhetoric has been mostly lip-service. Not that Bush would not have attacked Iran if he thought he could, but he went first to Iraq. So what new reasons are there for this sudden show of bellicosity?

To put it quite simply, Bush and BushCo. have to find a scapegoat and an excuse for their failure, and the easiest way for this to be effective is to sound the alarm about Iran. Iran, Iran, Iran. The Iranians are providing weapons to the Shia Militias! The Iranians are aiding the suicide bombers. The Iranians wish to control Iraq and to punish the US. I doubt very much that Bush actually believes any of these platitudes. But for him, it's a matter of not being held responsible. Bush, as he has said himself, doesn't care about his legacy; he cares only that he is not held ultimately responsible for the catastrophe that is his Iraq policy. He is the petulant two-year-old who when he sees he is about to lose, changes the rules of the game so that the game continues until he wins. Or everyone else simply becomes bored with playing.

Which makes it all the easier for the truly insane who believe that this is the correct policy to pursue these policies. So while it is obvious that Bush cares little about all of this, there is a cadre of policymakers, the so-called serious men, who believe wholly in this policy and will force US to continue to pursue it, come Hell or High Water. They will in the end destroy the US because they care nothing about the US; they care only about their policies and their belief in those policies. Cheney is such a man. McCain is such a man. Most of the contributors to the National Review are such men and women. The War Whore Michael Ledeen is not only such a man, he is also the ultimate hypocrite. He now says that he never advocated for war in Iraq, even though there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

And so now, unable to admit to the catastrophe that is Iraq, they turn their attention to Iran and blame Iran for all their troubles. Because, as everyone knows, Iran invaded Iraq in March of 2003. And the War Whores that bellowed for War cannot bring themselves to admit that they may have been wrong.

THE DECISION-MAKER vs. THE PUBLIC SERVANT

2007-01-29T18:01:00.000-05:00

Lately, all we hear is how George Bush is the Decision-Maker, the Commander In Chief, the High Mucky-Muck, and we should all listen to him and just do what he says. That's an interesting take, because if you read The Constitution, nowhere does it say that the President becomes Commander In Chief of The United States. No, in fact, it says he becomes Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces. I did not join the Armed Forces. George Bush is not my Commander In Chief; he is my servant. He is not the decision-maker; he is the individual who carries out our decisions.

All you have to do is read The Constitution and the documents used to ratify it. The President was to be the public face of the Government as Congress with all its representatives could not be. But the President cannot make Law. He does not legislate; he executes the Law as given to him by the Legislature, in this case Congress. And all of these individuals, Congress and The President are representatives of the People. They are Public Servants. It would be nice if they acted like that.

Instead, we get Dick Cheney calling those of us who are demanding that he do his job, which is to represent the interests of the American people, traitors. Making statements such as "I'm the Vice President, and they're not." Instead we get George Bush telling us that he's the Decider, that he's the Decision-Maker. Which is a bunch of crap. George Bush believes that he is the ultimate arbiter of what it is to be an American. He believes that he can do whatever he wants, and that the law does not apply to him. In fact, the entire Administration believes that they are not Public Servants, that they are Sovereign and we are vassals.

If I remember correctly, there was a small war fought over that very issue.

If you'd like to read people better at explaining this, go to Glenn Greenwald's site. Or Atrios. Both had rather extensive posts on this subject.

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GEORGE WILL IS AN IDIOT!

2007-01-28T10:56:00.000-05:00

I was going to write about the Republicans in general, but then I was sitting here watching This Week with George Stefanopoulus and George Will is sitting there on the panel defending the President's bogus Healtcare Plan. And just about everyone else on the panel is arguing against him.

Will is an idiot. Plain and simple. The rest of the panelists are also idiots. Set aside the stupidity of the President's plan for Healthcare and the way it would be paid for, let's get first principles straight. Healthcare is not a commodity. It is a necessity. We talk about equality of opportunity, yet how can you have equality of opportunity when you allow member of your community to be sick?

47 million Americans do not have Health Insurance. When they get sick they wait until the situation becomes nearly untenable. In many cases, this means they become unable to work, unable to tak care of themselves, which leads to a downward spiral in their standard of living and their families standard of living. In effect, we damn those that cannot afford Health Insrance to a life of uncertainty and anxiety. We damn them to a second class citizen status.

The President's plan won't help that because like most people, he believes Healthcare is a commodity. He believes that you can pick and choose your healthcare just like you can pick and choose the style, color, and model of your car. Which, on its face, is just wrong. Imagine, for instance, breaking your arm. Now, according to the commodity view of Healthcare, you would sit down and study your options and pick the best option for taking care of your broken arm. Of course, this ignores the fact that you might be in terrible pain, that while you're studying which Healthcare option is best you may get gangrene, and a host of other problems. Not to mention work lost.

What happens when you cannot get healthcare is that you work sick and you do it up to the point until you can't work anymore. And then you either strain the healthcare system or lose your job, or more likely both. So in the end, not only do you pull down yourself and your family, you pull down the system. Stephen Colbert covered the financial aspects of the President's plan on his show the day after the SOTU. He put it best concerning that aspect. But let's not kid ourselves, Healthcare is a necessity, not a commodity. And as long as we think of it as a commodity, we won't move this debate forward.

THE NEW WAY FORWARD = OCCUPATION

2006-12-13T11:50:00.000-05:00

Bill Bennett was on The Today Show this morning, speaking about Iraq. Matt Lauer made mention of Bennett's remarks concerning the Iraq Study Group and how he had characterized them, and I was taken by the fact that Bennett's characterization matched Bennett to to Tee. I believe his words were that the Iraq Study Group was the most self-righteous and smug group he had ever heard. Had I been Matt Lauer, I would have suggested that Mr. Bennett should take a look in the mirror were he looking for self-righteous and smug. But that is all a digression to the more important point: We are never leaving Iraq.

Look, let's be honest: the Conventional War with the Iraqi military is long over and we won that. We destroyed the Iraqi military almost without a thought. The Conventional War which our soldiers fought was a resounding success, never mind the legality of it. But we have managed to make a complete hash of the Occupation, for that is what we are in now. We are Occupiers.

I've written about this once before, and others more knowledgeable and more erudite have also written about this, but the conventional consensus persists in calling our Occupation of Iraq a War. And as Bill Bennett pointed out this morning, then the terms used are victory or defeat. We must win the War. The problem is, we have already won the War; but we have lost the Occupation. Which brings me to the title. The only way Bush can appear as anything other than the completely incompetent CIC is by continuing to call what we are in in Iraq a War, because Wars end, and they usually end with a victor. So Bush and the Neocons continue to call our involvement in it War. The only War going on in Iraq is the Civil War there; we are stuck in the middle of it!

We are occupiers. Let's face it; that's what we're doing there. Occupation, in and of itself, is not a good or bad thing; after all, we occupied Germany and Japan after WWII and still have bases in both of those nations because of our occupation. Our relations with both countries are overall good, though starined now since we don't seem to have any sense of restraint anymore. But what we have done in Iraq is quite simply criminal. First, we invaded on false pretenses, then we ignored the necessary infrastructure needed for occupation. And here's where Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Senor, and all the rest prove how criminal they are. Not a single one of them thought that there may be more to taking over a nation than just winning a conventional war. Not a single one of them looked back in history just two generations old and saw what was necessary to solidify the gains made by the allies in defeating Germany and Japan.

History shows that to maintain order, the US and its allies did not disband the infrastructure of Germany and Japan. We did not tear up the institutions of those societies, leaving a vaccuum. But Bush and his cadre dont' really study anything. For Bush, this was always just an exercise in one-upmanship. There was never any threat from Iraq. Bush Jr. just wanted to play leader, just like he played at everything else. And once the initial euphoria of showing what a great leader was over, he lost interest in the hard work necessary to hold Iraq together. Just as he lost interest in everything else he's ever done. Just as he's lost interest in rebuilding New Orleans. And the only reason he is now even considering any changes in Iraq policy is because for the first time someone (the American Voters, six years too late) is holding him responsible, something no one has ever done to him before.

But there will be no change in policy or the change in policy will be to send more troops because that would be an admission that we did something wrong. No; Bush will state when he finally talks to us that we need to chart a new course which will be pretty much the old course. We will stand down when the Iraqis stand up. We must win this thing and we will win this thing, if only we persevere. And he's right to a certain extent. If we stay there for 20, 30 years or more, Iraq will become stable again. Just like Vietnam is stable again. And he'll feel he's vindicated, because to him what's improtant is not how many US soldiers died, not how many Iraqis died, not how much treasure we spent prosecuting this illegal war, not what it's done to the country and our civil liberties: No; what matters to him is his reputation. He is so wrapped up in himself, that he actually believes that what is best for him is best for the country. He has become what Richard Nixon was accused of: an Imperial President of the first magnitude. He does not do the country's bidding; the country does his. But the truth is the Emperor has no clothes (or thoughts, for that matter).

A final question that needs to be asked: Just how many lives, how much of our country, how much treasure are we willing to sacrifice for George Bush to not feel as though he failed? How much are we willing to scarifice for the continued Occupation of Iraq?

4 TO 6 MONTHS

2006-11-28T18:14:00.000-05:00

It's impossible to keep up at this point. The situation in Iraq deteriorates daily. The Great Pundit Class pontificates without the slightest clue or self-irony about how wrong they have been and continue to be about Iraq. And the so-called experts continue to explain that the situation will change in 4 to 6 months. It's funny that, or it would be if it weren't so tragic, but the ex-military and ex-career diplomats who expound on Iraq have been telling us pretty much the same thing for 2 years now. So at what point does 4 to 6 months really become just 4 to 6 months?

It doesn't help that George the Third has abdicated responsibility for this mess. You can see it in his behavior. He no longer believes that Iraq is his baby. Oh, he keeps spouting the words about how we will win if we don't leave, but what he's really arguing for now is don't leave before he leaves. Let someone else be held responsible for pulling out of Iraq. Let someone else take the blame. After all, George has never taken responsibility for anything he's ever done. He's always had someone else bail out his sorry ass. Or he just leaves before it all goes to hell. All anyone had to do was look at this sorry-assed idiot's past performance and we (the Good Ole US of A) could have been spared this past 6 years.

But we mustn't blame just poor little George. No; there's plenty of blame to go around. We shouldn't forget the Republican Party. No; they are not blameless. They chose party over country. They chose ideology over The US Constitution. They chose extremism over what is Right and True. They wanted so much to be in control, they acted like the corrupt little prigs some people thought they were. They proved all those people correct.

The Democrats, on the other hand, forgot that they needed to grow a pair. For nearly 6 years, they let the lying, thieving Republican Congress and Administration do just that: Lie and Rob us blind. They rolled over for a war that made no sense simply because they were afraid of looking weak, and what happened: they looked even weaker. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Let's not let the idiot right-wingnuts off either. The NeoCons, the TheoCons, the Christianists. No; the US Constitution doesn't exist for these people. Ideology is all. Their latest tactic is to argue that "Well yes, the situation was screwed from the beginning, but let's look to the present and future and show us how to get out of this mess." This is what you will hear for the next two years from these petty, bullying despots. They will scream and shout about how the Democrats can't stabilize Iraq, can't get us out of Iraq without the country falling into chaos (oh, wait; it's already there), that we should vote for their next Authoritarian who promises to save us from ourselves, even while he curtails our liberties. And they will use their constant whining to try to get us to forget that we are in this mess because too many believed them when they first came up with this insanity.

So let us remember all of the insane, inept, incompetent, and just plain wrong who continue to state that their policy is the only policy which makes sense. And let us remember the screeching harpies who shouted "traitor" and "coward" at those of us who had the good sense to actually look at the situation before diving in and ask what were we diving into. Because if we don't remember these criminals, these cowards, these bigots, then we run the risk that two years from now, they will have rehabilitated their reputations enough that we will once again find ourselves ruled by madmen and tyrants, and perhaps then, we won't be able to get out at all.

WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?

2006-11-24T12:57:00.000-05:00

I had planned to write about the supposed call for bipartisanship by the Republican Leadership (amazing how you suddenly become bipartisan when your side gets thrashed in the last election), but something more important intruded. I was watching television, and right there on my tv was a commercial for Citgo offering people who couldn't afford heating oil a 40% discount. To say the least, it made me take notice. Not just because Hugo Chavez was doing what he said he was going to do (and everyone knows Chavez is the great South American Boogeyman), but because of what we in our own country are not willing to do: we are not willing to help the working poor.

It's ironic that the richest nation ever, richer by far than the British Empire was, does not take care of its own and has to rely on the generosity of Venezuela for heating oil for its less fortunate brethren. Its ironic that a devout Christian President sees no problem with taking away opportunities from those less fortunate than himself, for people who did not get born with the right family connections. Its ironic that devout Evangelicals spend thousands of dollars to advertise against the supposed sin of homosexuality and abortion but do nothing to try to help alleviate the poverty of millions of our fellow citizens. 16% of school-aged children live in poverty, meaning they don't have proper nutrition, proper supervision, or the benefits of stable family life. Yet we wonder why they cannot learn. Republicans and Democrats both demand stricter school policies, better test scores, more accountability by teachers, but what about the accountability of our society for what we do to the working poor and the disenfranchised of our country. What about our accountability?

We talk a good game about equality of opportunity, but where is that really? How do you get an equal chance at the Gold ring when you're hungry, you're cold, you're tired, and you're worried about whether or not you'll survive until the next day? How much potential are we destroying simply through negligence? How many young people out there could possibly chnage our world but will never get the chance because we don't believe in helping our own? Becuase we believe that if you are poor or underfed or cold, it's your fault. Even if you happen to be six years old.

It's the Holidays, and for the next month or so, we'll all pay lipservice to the poor and the disenfranchised. But what happens when the holidays are over? Do we go back to forgetting, or do we actually remember those in need and try to help? Do we let Hugo Chavez be our conscience, or do we finally have a concience of our own?

BRING ON THE GROWN UPS; PART DEUX

2006-11-19T15:28:00.001-05:00

Since the Democratic victory in the House and Senate (Thank God!), we hear on a daily basis that George the Third understands the message the Citizenry of the USA is telling him, and that he is listening. Why! The very first thing he did was can Rummy's dimply cellulite ass, so he must be listening. Right?

I'm calling Bullshit! Bush has no intention of trying to correct the shitcan that Iraq has become. As he pointed out while visiting Vietnam, he thinks we're winning unless we pull out. It is obvious to anyone with half-a-brain that the President has none. The sheer stupidity of stating that we are winning just because we are still there is, to say the least, suspect. Unfortunately, Woody Allen's now famous quote that "80% of success is just showing up" is not a strategy for success when it comes to fighting a war.

Couple this with the President's belief that somehow now that the Dems have taken the House and the Senate John Bolton would become a reasonable candidate for US Ambassador to the UN and the renomination of judges who have extreme views and are not afraid to rule in those directions, and you can see that Bush plans not to give up anything. Which brings me to the Grown Ups.

Supposedly, Bush has gone running for guidance to Daddy, and Daddy will fix it all by having his grown up friends save little Georgie. One problem: The grown ups aren't so grown up. It doesn't take much digging to point out that Daddy Bush was the President who was shocked by the cost of milk at the Supermarket. Or that Rumsfeld and Cheney were advisors to Daddy Bush just like they are to little Georgie now. Nothing's changed; just some set pieces have been rearranged.

And let's not forget that the 2000 Election was the Election where the grown ups were going to take charge. Bush was going to bring integrity and honesty back to the White House. The country was going to be led by a CEO President (never mind that the companies he was CEO of all went belly up; never mind that he never did anything without Daddy bailing him out). Instead, what did we get? We got 6 years of spiralling deficits. We got nearly six years of War. We have more poor citizens than when he became President. And we have Fundamentalist Religious Right Hate Groups who believe that the country somehow belongs to them and that they can do whatever the Fuck they want to with it! They can help Little Georgie gut The Constitution, break into our bedrooms, and tell us what to think.

But, as the Mighty MSM tells us, the grown ups are once again in charge in the WH. This is what they told us when Little Georgie was running for election. This is what they tell us now. But think about it: when has the MSM been correct about anything in the last 6 years? Editorially, almost to a man and woman (save Frank Rich and Keith Olbermann; and on occassion Maureen Dowd) they have fed us Republican crap as if it were reality. We went to war in Iraq because no one in the MSM spoke up against it. Little Georgie was elected President a second time because the MSM sat on its hands and pretended to be objective when all they were really being is a bunch of spineless lapdogs! They let John Kerry get smeared and helped spread those smears, all the while shouting that Democrats were doing bad things too. But when push came to shove, the MSM had to reach pretty far down into its sack of shit to find a Democratic smear that wasn't true, while the Republican ones weren't true right off the bat and every Republican mother and her son knew it and didn't care!

During the midterms, the smears didn't stop. It's allright if a Republican does it, is it. And as Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, and the other Beltway Bandits with no sense of shame seem to point out so well, they are quite good at enabling the Republican criminal elite. We heard constantly how the Dems need to show a plan, how they have to have a plan for Iraq, but never did they seem to ask what exactly the Republican plan for Iraq is or was. Never! And it didn't just stop there. On nearly every issue, the Republican position was accepted as being the predominant one, even when opnion polls proved otherwise. Raise the minimum wage, Republican position was no because it would harm small business (like they care about small business). Public position was yes, it needs to be raised. Global Warming; Republican position is is that it doesn't exist; General public, we should deal with it. But the great US punditocracy continues to only sell us the Republican position! And when someone points out that they are pandering to their paymasters, they laugh it off and pretend that it's the Democrats fault.

The truth is is that the grown ups aren't in the White House. The present bunch of advisors are no better than the previous bunch. Their cut fromthe same clothe. Their ideas helped shape the ideas of the idiots who got us into this mess. If it can be believed, Henry Kissinger, the idiot who managed to nearly destroy us in Vietnam, has been advising Little Georgie and the advice has been to stay the course. Do you honestly believe that now that Rummy's gone things will get better? Not until the two morons at the top fo the pile are shitcanned will that happen. We need to have the House and Senate proceed with impeachment hearings as soon as they are able. Until then, we will continue down this ruinous road.

SEVEN DAYS

2006-10-31T16:55:00.000-05:00

The election is in seven days. Seven days from now, we will know. We will know whether or not we are still ruled by these power-hungry pedophiles, crooks, incompetents, eliminationist theocrats and their bile-spewing mouthpieces or whether we will be able to take back at least some small bit of our country from those that hate us as much as they hate any outside enemy.

If you don't believe they hate us just because we diagree with them, I suggest you look at this commentary written by a former Bush speechwriter. Whether you agree with what he finds wrong with this country, you'll notice that his hatred is almost to a man turned on civilians, people who have relatively little power. Almost none of his hatred is focused on those who wield power. http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/102006/10282006/232595/printer_friendly

Yet this is the present day Republican Party. This is what they have become. They demonize their opponents and gloss over their failings. They sell out the average working man and woman every day, then try to sell us the same shit they did the day before about being on our side. Look at Bush's recent campaign speeches: "If the Democrats win, the terroists win!" is his new dishonest catchphrase. The terrorists are already winning. And they are winning not because of anything they have done; they are winning because our Dear Leader (the single most incompetent man ever to hold the office of President) is willing to trample our rights, to spit on our Constitution, to destroy our economy, to further dismantle what little is left of the social safety net, to promote Theocracy, to fracture and splinter this country into little warring factions, all so he can reward his welathy contributors and his sycophantic friends.

In seven days. We will know in seven days whether we care enough to try to take our country back.

A LETTER TO THOSE VALUES VOTERS

2006-10-11T18:16:00.000-04:00

Dear Values Voters;
I know you don't like being preached to (particularly from a Liberal: Married 20 years, 1 son, only person in my family that drinks - a beer a day), but I wanted to talk to you about the people you seem to vote for. Specifically, I wanted to ask, what exactly do you see in them?

I know many of you consider yourselves good conservatives and believe that the Republican Party extols the values of conservativism. But where exactly is that happening? I mean, how do you square the Republican Party telling you its the party of family values with Representative Mark Foley - a suspected pedophile? How do you square House Speaker Hastert telling us that he knew nothing about it, when we have more than one other member of the House saying they told him about this situation at least a year ago? Whether or not he tried to cover up Foley's criminal activity, he was, to put it in the best light, grossly negligent, and I know that if I were so grossly negligent in my work, I would be fired. So why shouldn't he?

But that's only a small part of the values problem your party seems to have. Imagine, the party which believes in the saving of innocent life, yet the Vice President shoots a man in the face, then lies about how it happened.

Or a president who has stated we will not sacrifice innocent life to save lives, then sends off young men and women, our sons and daughters - innocents all, to fight his war. A war he had to lie about to get us into. A war he knew was unnecessary, but because of pride and ego, chose to prosecute anyway. And of the promises he made to get the terrorist who murdered 3,000 of our fellow citizens, you hear nothing.

Or how do you explain a noted heart surgeon, now Senate Majority Leader, who believes he can diagnose an illness from 2 minutes worth of edited vidotape? They speak of personal responsibility and choosing your way of life, but then they wish to control how you live and how you die while all the time talking about an ownership society.

What about the ownereship society? We were promised that economically we would be better off under the Republicans. Are we? Tax cuts managed to put all of $300.00 back into our pockets, not even enough for 1 month's mortgage payments. But if you're wealthy, it gave you a big boost. And all the while, if you're middle-class, they took away money from College Education Grants, they took away money for the poor, they took away money from school funding.

And next time you're in church, ask the seniors there if they're ready to give up their social security? Ask them honestly whether or not it helps make their life easier. Sure, Social Security has problems - but what program doesn't? In the final analysis, does it do more good or harm? Ask the people directly affected by it what they think.

Don't forget, that it was President Bush who stood in front of a crowd of wealthy donors and made the joke: "We have two kinds of people in this room: the haves and the have more. Some call you the elite; I call you my base."

And when the Republicans attack Democrats as being the Party fo Tolerance, think about that for a minute. When they attack them for their Liberal views which they argue brought about the sexual promiscuity they so abhor and it's all Clinton's fault, remember that it's Newt Gingrich who had an affair while his wife was in treatment for cancer, who told his wife he was divorcing her over the phone, remember that it was Republicans forced to resign during the Lewinsky scandal because while they were screaming for Clinton's head on a plate, they were doing the same thing and lying about it just as blatantly, remember that it's Rush Limbaugh who has had numerous affairs and too many marriages to count, remember that it's Ann Coulter who lived in the Penthouse Mansion with Bob Guccioni.

Yet many of you will still not vote for a Democrat because Democrats are just awful, or so you believe. Really? Are they awful? Democrats ran Congress for some 30 years with slight majorities. In that time, we had the civil rights movement, we had consistent economic growth, we had reduction in poverty. Yet Democrats became complacent and possibly a bit corrupt. So they were voted out.

But Republicans have now had control of Congress for 8 years. In the last 5 years, we have had rising poverty, reverses in civil rights, the worst economic growth this country has ever seen outside the Great Depression, a US city underwater, and it took the Republicans only 8 years to become totally corrupt. Abramoff is a Republican problem, Tom Delay is a Republican problem, Bob Nye is a Republican problem, Mark Foley is a Republican problem. And we still don't know the full extent of Abramoff's reach into the White House.

So when you think to yourself that there can't be anything worse than a Democrat, think to yourself how can they be any worse than the corrupt, unfeeling, criminal enterprise that is the present day Republican Party? And if you're honest with yourself, you'll have to admit that they can't.

When you vote for values, remember; it's the Democrats who have them.

THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ CONTINUES

2006-06-18T21:25:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a very short item, I hope. There are only three items to cover. One: The US continues to occupy Iraq. Two: Iraq is not safer (just look to the State Department memo concerning safety there; and Three: the Repulican Congress and The Executive have no clue as to how to make it any better.

As Bush said in May of 2003, "All major combat operations are over." That pretty much means we're just occupiers now. To say the least, indigenous populations don'treally like being occupied.

Iraq isn't safer. The Iraqi Government instituted a curfew in Baghdad, amongst other places. As of today, Sunday, June 18th, over a hundred have been killed. Add to that the two US soldiers taken hostage (and I don't even want to talk about the poor guy killed), the curfew and polciies of the Iraqi Gov't don't seem to mean shit.

Which brings me to point three: Republicans just don'tgive a flying fuck! We know, because the Iraqi Government said it, that Iraqis are willing to give amnesty to insurgents so long as those insurgents didn't attack Iraqis, no mention made of the coalition forces. So by their own statements, we know the Iraqis don't really give a shit about our troops. And what do the Republicans have to say about this: nothing that makes the slightest bit of sense. Republicans don't seem to care that our troops, our young men and women are being killed by Iraqis or anyone else because they have tied themselves to a criminal foreign policy and now will do anything (which doesn't include them actually to take responsiblility or to risk their lives) to keep their political position, while letting US troops die for their mistakes. This goes for every Republican in Congress, Bush and his Administration, and every apologist for the Administration. We are killing and maiming our soldiers so that some asshole in Washington DC can adhere to his delusions! Plain and simple, if you believe we are in Iraq for any of the reasons the Administration put forth, you are killing US citizens for a delusion!

It's time we had a little honesty. Too bad we won't get it from the supposed representatives of the people. You and I are getting screwed. And if you have a son or daughter who might be in the military or thinking about it, you're getting screwed twice!

A MATTER OF INTERPRETATION

2006-06-03T19:51:00.000-04:00

Two items which might seem completely different yet have somehow become equated in my feverish brain: There has been a huge brouhaha about Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom and a synopsis of a course he is planning to teach or is teachin presently which concerns linguistic theory and interpretation of text. Now, I'm no linguistic theorist, so I shan't get into the argument about whether he is correct or not in his assessment. Suffice to say that Goldstein belives in authorial intention as the only correct way to interpret a text. Of course, he then has to explain what he means by authorial intention, and to a degree, he does, arguing that the author's intention concerning a text can be found through ancillary works and notes and what the author himself has stated the work means. This is all well and good, but it leads me to ask a question of Goldstein about what he means. If he indeed believes that authorial intention is the only right and proper way to determine a text's meaning, why for example does he not hold the same standard to the text of the FISA Law? Why, for example, does he accept the Attorney General's interpretation of that law as the only one that matters when the framers of that specific law are available to be asked what in fact their intention was?

Now, before you pillory me for taking Goldstein's theory of authorial intention out of context, I'd like to point out that he uses a similar argument about law and interpretaion in his paper so I feel justified in pointing out his inconsistencies (to be kind). There really is only one point: If Goldstein believes that authorial intention is the only correct and proper way to interpret a text, then he is either a hypocrite, liar, idiot, moron, or just plain obtuse individual if he cannot see that any interpretation of the FISA Law which does not take into account authorial intention is a direct contradiction to his own theories.

Which brings me to my second item concerning interpretation: Job Growth and Unemployment. The numbers came in Friday for Job Creation in May. To say the least, they fell far short of what is necessary just to keep up with new job seekers in the work-force. 75,000 new jobs, as compared to the 150,000 necessary, to be a bit more precise. Yet, according to the Federal Gov't, unemployment was lower for May. Huh? Think about that. There are 75,000 fewer jobs than job-seekers, yet unemployment is supposedly down. So what happened to those 75,000 unemployed job seekers?

Now, again, I have to admit I'm no economist and I'm certain there are many factors which go into the unemployment and jobs numbers. But unless more than 75,000 people retired last month, I can pretty much guarantee you that there were more unemployed than less. Part of the reason the unemployment number is so off is that if you are unlucky enough to reach the end of your benefit cycle, you're miraculously off the unemployment rolls. Hallejuha; You're no longer unemployed! You just don't have a job.

Anothe part of the equation is the under-employed. When a software engineer takes a job at WalMart just so he can put food on the table, well, he's not really unemployed, is he? Or if you decide to call yourself a consultant because, let's face it, calling yourself unemployed just doesn't look good. To a great many employers, if you're unemployed, you're damaged goods. No, what it comes down to is a matter of interpretation. In Europe where they have a social safety net, you hear about 10%-11% unemployment, and we go, Hozzah! Look at the US economy! We're beating the pants off those damn Europeans! Except we're not really. We're just fudging the numbers and pretending that that makes us better off. I would guess ( and, yes, this is a guess, but one based on at least a little education), that if we were really to count up the number of unemployed in the US workforce, we would find that our numbers aren't that much better than the Europeans, if at all. And while they have something to fall back on, we have only our eternal optimism.

So what do these two items have to do with each other? Well, it all comes down as to how you choose to interpret the data. As someone once said, "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics."

THE RIGHT

2006-05-25T19:55:00.000-04:00

Why do I inveigh against The Right? Why this animosity towards them, other than they are trying to drive the country to ruin? I mean, they won't be the first or the last to try to do so. But why do they incense me so? Let me count the ways:

Newt Gingrich calls for Clinton's impeachment because Clinton supposedly lied to Congress about a sexualk scandal, all the while Gingrich was having an affair.

He was not the only Republican at the time doing so.

Dont' forget Limbaugh.

And we wouldn't want to forget his comments about drug abusers, while he himself was (maybe still is?).

Ann Coulter tells women they're not smart enough to vote. Does that mean Ann is not smart enough to open her mouth on national TV?

Ann Coulter gives lessons on morality yet doesn't believe those lessons pertain to her personal behavior.

Oh, forget it. There is just no way I can cover the myriad litany of sins by the so-called Right and the Conservative Movement. There are jsut too many, and I don't have that kind of time. Just sitting here typing this I'm reminded by the last item I write about another hypocrisy, another example of just how warped these people are! Laws don't apply; moral standards don't apply. They will say and do anything...ANYTHING...to win and damned the consequences for the country. These are not just people we can disagree with; these are evil people. EVIL! How do you discuss what is right or wrong when they are so certain in their rightness, even when they have done the very acts they rail against? There is no common ground. There is no means of honest debate, because they do not care about debate; they care only in power and control and exerting it over others!

I've called them Fascists in this blog before, and I believe that is what they are. But if possible they may be worse than simple fascists because of what they are doing to political discourse in this country. They are forever destroying the concept of common ground, of what makes us all citizens. With every slander, every lie, every condemnation of positions not their own, they make it that much harder to ever debate intelligently. They are destroying debate. They are hypocrits of the worst sort.

I found out my college roommate now writes sometimes for the National Review Online. That in itself shouldn't be a comdemnation of my college roommate. He was a pretty smart guy. But what has finally brought home just how evil these people are is what he writes about and how he can justify writing what he does after what he's done. I know. I was there. But now he rails against the very actions which he took, and I find myself wondering how can he be so intellectually dishonest? I find myself looking back and wondering if he always was so? And if he wasn't, what happened to the objective intelligent thinker that was there then? And are we all doomed to become hypocritical caricatures of our better selves? Is that what we all become?

ARE END-TIMERS TRAITORS TO THE US?

2006-05-24T20:04:00.000-04:00

I'msure if anyone read this, they would have somethingto say about it: some in the vein that they agree with me totally without thinking about it; others that I'm some heathen. But the question is valid.

End-Timers believe in their interpretation of The Book of Revelations. According to their interpretation, God's Children (them) will be whisked away to Heaven to leave the wicked (us) to fight it out, and once the fighting is over, God will return them to a Heaven on Earth. Sounds good, as a story. But I have questions.

For instance, according to some End-Timers, not all the Righteous are going to be whisked away in The Rapture. Some will be stranded here on Earth with us wicked folk. There is in fact a chosen few who will be whisked away. So as an End-Timer, how do you know you will be one of the Chosen? I mean, it's not like there's a list, is there?

But let's say for the sake of arguement, you are one of the Chosen. If that's true, why do you care what happens on the Earth? Why do you care what the wicked do, as the End-Times are coming (I knew an End-Timer who said in the year 2007) and you won't be here? The only possible explanation for your behavior is to try to accelerate the coming of the Rapture. If this is so, then your political actions are not taken for the good of the country as you profess, but for the good of End-Timers; and your political actions are actually a betrayal of your fellow citizens, who won't be saved by your considerably vengeful God. In other words, you're selling all the rest of us down the river for your personal salvation (though how betrayal translates into a Christian virtue, I don't know).

On the other hand, you could argue that since you don't know if you are one of the Chosen you're hedging your bets. But tha's a cop-out. If your faith is so strong, why would you need to hedge your bets? Hell (Sorry), you're going to Heaven, and that's that. The rest of us can fry! Which brings me back to the question of why you do what you do? You're not making the Earth a better place for me by your actions. In point of fact, I think you're making it worse. So stop trying to save my soul by controlling everything we wicked would like to do. The only thing you seem to be trying to do is destroy the US that much faster so that you can meet your interpretation of your maker that much faster. To me (but what do I know; I'm wicked), that's treason.

THE REAL USE OF THE OVERTON WINDOW

2006-05-13T19:00:00.000-04:00

Joshua Trevino, a conservative blogger who blogs at Redstate.com and Swords Crossed, recently provided all us liberal bloggers with the secret formula to conservative success in the elections. Basically, he tells us about the Overton Window and the idea of making many of the not initially palpable ideas of the conservative movement palpable over the course of time to the majority of the country. How this works is by getting the fringe members of the conservative movement to put forth fringe ideas. As the fringe idea moves through the public discourse,it picks up legitimacy,perhaps still staying outside the mainstream but not dismissed out of hand. Further, it becomes a point which must be refuted, then a point which must be considered, still further a point which is considered a legitimate policy initiative, and finally policy. Then the process starts all over again in thepolicy arena until the conservative movement achieves its ultimate goal in that particular policy area.

He gives as an example Education Policy: The Window Shows the different areas of this policy from the inital phase where all schools are public, then private schools are allowed, then Charter schools are allowed, then shcools are privatized but funded by the government, and finally all schools are private.

I do not doubt that the conservative movement has as one of its ultimate goals the complete privatization of education. Nor do I doubt that they use the Overton Window for policy procedure. But I believe Trevino is being disingenuous here, because let's face it, most people don't want shcools fully privatized, knowing that that will lead to the most unequal of educations. No; the Overton Window has a much more sinister use. It's use is as a tool to discredit and destroy opposition because most conservatives know that the policies they advocate do not in fact aid the majority of the population.

Witness the conservative assault on the Media. The Media at present is constantly described as being liberal and biased. Consrevatives harangue the NYT, the WAPO, and all media as being liberal and biased. Now, however, they have moved on to the next step in the Overton Window on discrediting the Media. They have claimed loudly that the NYT and the WAPO reporters who received Pulitzers for their reporting of stories dealing with Gov't malfeasance are traitors and should be in jail. They have made a fringe arguement about the Media being criminals, but that fringe arguement becomes more mainstreamed the more they repeat it. It doesn't matter that the policies and practices which these articles pointed out were illegal. The Gov't disobeying the law is not the issue the Conservatives want us to focus on. It is their fringe position that the Media has done something wrong by educating us to criminal activity by our Government.

The same is occurring with critics of the Administration in general. If you are a critic, you are a moonbat, out of your head, a defeatest, and last but not least a traitor. And that is the point the Conservatives want. If you disagree, you must be a traitor so whatever you say or do is suspect. And soon, they'll be able to throw you in jail for just disagreeing.

But some of the most insidious use of the Overton Window comes when it's election time. The Conservatives pull out all the stops. Witness the recent Rush Limbaugh statements concerning crime in Houston because of the population influx from New Orleans. He doesn't come and straight out say it, but we know what he means. Even those of us who do not agree with his statements know what he is alluding to. Pretty soon, if Limbaugh and company have their way, they will repeal the 14th Amendment.

As they will repeal the citizenship of anyone whose sexual preferences do not meet their standard. The issue isn't Gay Marriage. The issue is the creation of an internal enemy which they can then defeat. Last year, it was Gays getting married. This year, it will be an attempt to outlaw Gays adopting. The next election cycle, it will be Gays employed in the public sector. After that, it will be Gays employed anywhere. And in the end, it will be Gays anywhere at all.

No,the real use of the Overton Window is not issues. It is to create enemies with which the Conservative Movement can frighten us into ignoring their complete and utter malignancy. Movement Conservatives have nothing to show for their beliefs other than hate. We win when we show them for what they are. We lose when we provide them with easy targets.

WE'RE ALL TERRORISTS NOW!

2006-05-12T17:59:00.000-04:00

I've been following the NSA Warrantless Wiretapping story since the beginning as I find Government encroachement of Civil Liberties something of an issue. I didn't like the explanation at the beginning of this story when it first appeared, and I like it even less now that we find out that 3 major phone companies (who want to have the right to make you pay for what you see on the internet) are giving out phone records wily-nily because the NSA asked nice. What we now find is that not only does the Administration believe it has the right to break the law (warrantless wiretaps), it also has the right to do it to anyone it wishes for whatever reason.

Bear with me for a moment as obviously that is not what the USAToday article said. What it stated was that the NSA was given phone records of 10s of Millions of US citizens by 3 major phone companies without obtaining a warrant for this information to distinguish "suspious" patterns. It also stated that QWest found the request problematic.

Now, That doesn't look like they listened in on conversations, does it? Except, of course, how do you define a suspious pattern? How do you finally know that a pattern is suspious? Ah...I think you might have to listen in.

There are only two scenarios in which having all this data works: 1) a terrorist attack occurs and you can backtrack, perhaps catching other terrorists. This does no good in detering the inital attack, or 2) you listen in on conversations.

Let's start with the simple stuff: almost everyone who makes phone calls has patterns of calls. I know I do. There are places and people I call regularly. That's a pattern. There are new people and places I have to call regularly. That's a pattern. So if I change my pattern to a new pattern suddenly for whatever reason, I'm now under suspicion. Even if my change of pattern is perfectly reasonable (new friend, different client, new home, search for a new job). So how does the NSA determine that my pattern is not suspious? Guess what; they have to listen in on my phone calls! And possibly log what internet sites I visit. And soon they will be reading our mail, because, you know, We're All Terrorists Now.

WORN OUT.

2006-03-08T08:33:00.000-05:00

I admire the bloggers who can do this day in and day out, even the disingenouous ones on the Fascist Right. I can't. I'm trying to get to the point where I can do this at regularly once a week. It's not from lack of time or material that I found myself incapable of committing thoughts to screen; there's more than enough material. That is in fact the problem. There is more than enough material. There is too much material.

Where to begin: This morning the NYT tells us that the Congressional GOP have come up with a way for George the Third to keep spying on us without following the Law. Yet there is no great outrage as our rights are trampled in the dust.

The Today Show does a segment on a cheerleader who fell and broke a bone in her spine, but Katy Couric, that paragon of journalistic virtue, held her up as model of perky optimism because as they were wheeling her away on a stretcher, she kept right on cheering. In a way, it's kind of a funny image. Except that nearly half of sports related injuries for young women occur during cheerleading with a huge portion of those resulting in serious injury. There was a Real Sports segment on this over a year ago. It's not a topic for laughter or for cheerlading.

Gordon Parks died. Photographer; Film-maker; Composer. I knew Mr. Parks, not well nor intimately, but he seemed a gracious man. And in a time when being Black was akin to being a crime in this country, he created images which still stick with us, he directed a movie which made it cool to be Black (Shaft), and he lived his life gracefully and graciously. The earth is diminished by his passing.

DO BLOGS PUSH THE MSM RIGHT?

2006-01-31T13:04:00.000-05:00

There's been an ongoing discussion for awhile now as to what is wrong with the MSM and what effect Blogs have on them. Peter Daou has done a very good job of pointing out the Pro-Bush Media Bias which exists, much to the consternation of many on the right who simply cannot give up their whipping boy straw-man of the so-called Liberal Media. Of course, that has only brought out the Liberal Bias charge against Daou. Naturally, his critics do nothing to refute his theory; they simply bloviate against him.

In the meantime, the Washington Post has turned off its comments section in its Political Blog because the ombudsman, the person who is supposed to keep the paper honest, felt she was getting "Hate" mail when she basically parrotted Rightwing talking points without so much as a how do you do. For the ombudsman to stop responding to readers is, to say the least, surprising, as it is the ombudsman's function to respond to readers.

And on the Today Show, Katie Couric got into the act, repeating rightwing lies. When Howard Dean called her on it, she mad some snotty comment about checking the facts. Nevermind she had her facts wrong and then went to the troubel of having Tim Russert pretty much give truthiness to the lie the next day, but how come she has never done the same to the rightwing talking heads they bring on the show? Bill O'Reilly comes on and lies out his ass about the War on Christmas, but I don't see Katie Couric or Matt Lauer doing a follow-up where they show that O'Reilly lied out his ass. No, that gets let go.

Which brings me to my question - Do Blogs push the MSM to the Right? We already know that the MSM is run by conglomerates who trend towards the Right - witness Sumner Redstone's infamous comment before the last election that while he felt the Democratic position was the one he should take as an individual, he would vote Republican for the good of Viacom (more on how wront that concept is another time) - but reporters supposedly trend toward the left. Now, if that's true, even with pressure coming down from on high, you would think they would find some way to insert their leanings into their stories. So why don't they? In fact, why do they seem to actually trend right in their stories? Part of the reason is blogging.

One consequence of the Blog phenomena is that Blogs help to push the MSM to the right. On the left blogosphere, you have a conversation, a fact-checking, no-holds-barred discussion of a topic. You have multiple voices and views, all going over every piece of data and stringing together all the evidence, looking for sloppiness and laziness in reporting and a search for truth (factual, real truth as opposed to what I want to believe truth). Reporters don't like that. Most reporters particularly those who have a following after a time, don't want to work too hard for the truth. And the lefty blogosphere tries to make them work. They resent actually having to do that work. They resnt being told they're wrong. They resent that theeir pronouncements aren't just accepted at face value. They resent having to prove again and again that they actually do know how to do their job - and given the accuracy of their reporting on most issues that last is suspect. That's why Katie Couric doesn't go after O'Reilly. That's why the WP ombudsman freaks when she's called out for being wrong. But that doesn't explain why they go after the left.

And that's where the rightwing noise machine comes in. Their good at staying on message and shoving that message down your throat as if it were in fact fact. Most of the time, it's not, but if they shout it out loud enough and often enough, they get reporters to listen, to the point where those lazy reporters make it their main headline and don't worry about checking to see if they are being told the truth. Rightwing blogs, unlike fact-based blogs, are simply a part of the top-down noise machine. They are nothing more than the mouthpieces for the official partyline story.

So it all comes down to the most basic of human concepts: laziness and resentment. The rightwing blogs win because as its been said time and time again, they have one message, one story, and reporters don't really want to have to dig for the story. Hand it to them on a platter, and they're fat and happy.

And the left loses, not because they are wrong, but because they are correct. Because the facts actually do say what they are saying. Because the truth really is what the lefty bloggers are blogging, and all those pundits and reporters who have their sweet TV deals and their seven column inches in the big papers resent being shown up by a bunch of amateurs who care more for the truth and the facts than an easy-to-digest story.

So, yes, I believe that Blogging now does actually push the MSM to the right right now as their response is reactionary, and responses which are reactionary are by their very nature from the right. The thing with any new phenomenon which threatens the livelihood and comfort of an entrenched class is that the entrenched class will fight back, using their already existing base to try to destroy the revolutionary phenomenon. Right now, the MSM is fighting back against Blogs, mostly on the left because the left is more open and is not just another message machine. They fight us by ignoring what we say, by ridiculing it, by outright lying about it. But in the end, we'll win because we're in the right and even they know it.

AND SO IT BEGINS IN EARNEST.

2006-01-20T08:50:00.000-05:00

The Bush Administration has gone to court to get a federal judge to force Google to turn over over a random million search records. Now, if you don't see a problem with that, I think you really, really need to reread The Constitution. Under what law can the government demand that you give them private information because they say so? Because that's what they are saying here. The Administration is saying "give us this information because we want it." "We don't know if any crime has been committed, nor whether any laws have been broken, but if you give us this information, we will find out."

Not only is it problematic that the Administration believes it has the right to demand whatever information it asks for whenever it asks for it without any Probable Cause, we have to wonder what happens should the judge rule in their favor. Right now, the Administration is telling us they are doing this to further an investigation into Internet Porn. Whatever. Next time, they will tell us they are requesting this information to stop terrorism. The time after that it will be to stop organized crime. Then to stop music piracy. Film piracy. People ordering Mao's Little Red Book on Amazon.com. Blogs who disagree with Administration policy. And finally they won't give a reason at all because they will just demand whatever information they want and we won't know why.

Couple this with the Administration's illegal wiretapping program and the provisions in the Patriot Act which allow them to find out what books you're checking out of the library, and you have to wonder at what point we stand up for our civil liberties? There's no question that the Administration believes it can do whatever it believes to be correct no matter how outside the law for whatever purpose it believes to be correct. We are on the cusp of having our civil liberties taken away.

6 years ago, if this had happened, you would have had a coalition of the left and right in the US screaming at the top of their lungs about the abuse of power and illegality of the Administration's actions. Now from the Right you have nothing. Oh, a few Right-leaning leaders have complained, but their complaints have been muted to say the least. There has been no sustained outcry. In fact, if anything, the Right has embraced these restrictions on their liberty, in many cases stating that they would gladly give up a little liberty for greater security. We could argue whether we have greater security (we don't), but that's not the point.

Free countries, ones where liberty is prized or should be prized above all, are by their very nature chaotic. Total freedom breeds chaos. That is why we have laws. But in a Free country, the laws try to be as restrained as possible. So what can you say about a society in which a group of leaders decides it is above the law and can do as it wishes? We are, I fear, descending into despotism. Perhaps not of one individual, but into a despotism of Oligarchy, where a small cadre of leaders argue that they know what is best for everyone and they will protect us from not only those who would wish to do us harm, but ourselves as well.

ACT THREE OF THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THE US.

2006-01-16T18:21:00.000-05:00

The adminstration with the help of the conservative movement and the MSM is already laying the foundation for the next act in the destruction of the US: it's called Iran.

I'm not saying anything new here. All you have to do is look at all the talk. Iran; Iran; Iran! Oh woe is us; Iran wants a Nuclear program! Let's look at this, shall we.

Is a Nuclear Iran in the best interest of the World, let alone the US? Pretty much we can all agree that the answer is No. No, we do not want Iran to gain access to Nuclear technology which may or may not be used to create weapons. That's a given. So why would George the Third, our illustrious leader, attack Iraq? Is it as Jay Leno has come to say, he was just off by one letter - Iran; Iraq: honest mistake. Or is it that George the Third really doesn't give a damn about what happens in the World so long as he and his cronies - see Republican Party and the majority of the conservative sheep - can keep political control so that they can continue to ruin the Nation? It's really not much of a question is it.

George the Third and his administration along with their enablers have played upon the fears of the American people for 5 years now. They will continue to do so as long as they feel this tactic will work. The next Boogey-man is Iran. They will not provide us with a plan to deal with Iran, because, let's face it, they don't care about plans; they care about maintaining and consolidating power. And they will destroy this Country to do so.

As for Iran: When George tells you that we need to invade because they are a threat to the US, just take a look at how well he's done in Iraq.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

2006-01-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

In what can only be called the greatest act of self-abasement for a wrong cause, Powerline (specifically Assrocket) has stated that George Bush is not only the most intllectually gifted individual in the US but also comparable to Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.

I beg to differ.

Neither Churchill nor Lincoln were incompetent petty criminals, and all we have to do is look at George the Third's past to see that that is exactly what he is. As a so-called small businessman, he managed to run all his businesses into the ground and relied on his father's friends to bail him out, all the while cheating his investors and lying to the SEC. If there is anything you can learn from the example of this "illustrious" incompentent, it is that if you have enough money, it really doesnt matter how fucked up you really are.

Which brings me to my point. I don't think Powerline or most of the fairly literate (meaning they've read something other than the side of the cereal box) blogs really believe what they say. I don't think they're that stupid. No, it's just all part of the agenda: The Agenda to destroy the United States and the progressive ideas it stands for.

You see, Powerline and others (can you say Grover Norquist) wish to destroy the United States government, which has as its basis for some two hundred years acted as a defense for the common man, albeit a rather weak one but the best we've got. Their position is that Government should not protect against the abuses wrought by Industry and Capitalism. They reject Adam Smith, John Locke, Montesque, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, etc. etc. The list of those rejected goes on and on. And they reject them not out of any positive ideological stance. No, they reject them because they wish to control. They reject them out of a desire for authoritarianism. They are authoritarians, so long as they are in charge.

So Bush and his incompetence plays right into their hands. By bankrupting the Country, by showing that his administration cannot administer a flea bath to the official dog, Bush proves that the US Government, and by implication, the Cosntitution don't work, making Norquist and Powerline's and the rest of the fascists point for them.

If it didn't hurt nearly all of us, I would be inclined to let Norquist have his experiment. After all, I'd be interested in knowing what he would do once he no longer had his lobbying job to go to. I mean, unless he's independently wealthy - and we should ask where that came from - what is he actually cut out to do? It would be interesting to see him try to collect unemployment because I'm certain that the people he now relies on would cut him loose the instant they no longer needed him. He is seriously mistaken if he thinks he would end up on top.

SO TELL ME AGAIN WHEN US CITIZENS ABDICATED THEIR RIGHTS!

2006-01-11T11:52:00.001-05:00

I'd really like to know. It seems that we are no longer allowed any rights under this administration and legislature. Don't believe me, then read this: NSA Spies on Baltimore Quaker Group
and this:
IRS Freezing Refunds
Now, remember, the IRS (the second article) falls under the purview of the adminsitration. So not only does the administration feel it can eavesdrop on anyone they want (the first story), they also believe that only poor and working class people cheat on their taxes and should be punished for it. Yeah, right. The poor and middle class are such good accountants that they remain poor and middle class. Of course, what can you expect from an administration and legislature that ignores facts just so thay can blow shit up!

And then you get the constant traitor-baiting. George the Third has now stooped to this tactic, a tactic the fascist blogging public has been braying for quite some time now. Again, I want you to understand, I do not use the word "fascist" as hyperbole. That's what these people are. They care nothing about truth or facts or what they're policies are actually doing to the Country. They care nothing about the Rule of Law; They care only that their party remain in power. In other words, Fascists.

So the real traitors are all these fascists who will condone any action which continues their power-grab no matter how illegal or reprehensible. The president is a traitor. He took an oath to uphold The Constitution of the United States, but broke that oath almost as soon as he took it. So all those who agree with him are traitors. They believe that the only thing worth protecting is their preceived power. And it is preceived, because they assume wrongly - who'd have thunk it - that once the administration and legislature consolidate their hold on power by abolishing our Constitution that they will have some say in what happens. That's just not true. Again, all you have to do is look at what's been done by this coterie of criminals up to now to see that the only people who are going to come out of this with any power if we continue to allow the administration and legislature to destroy our liberties as they see fit, is the administration and the legislature and the moneymen behind them. The rest of us will just be bent over and taking it up the ass.

And if any of you fascists don't like being called fascists and want to prove just how tough you are, email me. I'll gladly let you come down to where I live and beat the living shit out of you! You assholes all think you're so tough, but the minute anyone stands up to your sorry ass, you fold like the pissants you really are! So take your traitor of a president and legislature and go find an island somewhere where you can create your fascist distopia and leave the rest of us the fuck alone!

SO WHEN DID THE US CONSTITUTION BECOME QUAINT?

2006-01-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

If you've been watching the News at all, you may have heard mention that George the Third authorized the NSA to illegally eavesdrop on US citizens. That's pretty much the gist of it...no ifs, ands, or buts. George Bush believes that if he wants to, he can circumvent the Law because he's president. And he doesn't seem to be alone in this belief, even though those that agree with him are basically half-baked fascists!

You'll notice I used the word fascist up above. I did not mean it as hyperbole. Any group that argues that it is above the Law, that it can do whatever it deems necessary because of some preceived threat, is totalitarian in nature. They do not respect the rights of their fellow citizens, believing that they somehow have the answer. They are in a word fascists. We're right; you're wrong, and we're going to do what we want when we want and to hell with you and the Law. Welcome to the present incarnation of the Republican Party.

Which would explain the thinking of our Fearless Leader. He knows best - never mind the fact that he's been wrong more often than he's been right. He deems all communication, all privacy rights, all individual rights as his to deal with however he wishes. If you don't believe me, just look at how he's behaved throughout this. As if it doesn't matter. Meaning, it doesn't matter to him. It may actually matter to you.

I'm not going to go into an indepth view of just how skewed and wacko the defense of this policy has been. Many others will have done a much better job at it than I (Glenn Greenwald, for one). Let me just say that all of the arguements condoning this action and condemning the whistleblowers are full of so much hot air, if it were a balloon, you'd be able to raise New York City. I am wondering though, when did the Constitution become "quaint," to use Alberto Gonzalez's phrasing? When did the situation become so dire, that we had to ignore our own Laws, that we had to ignore the very foundation that our Country and Government is built on, because in order to save our Country, it has become necssary to destroy it? When did the nebulous Ends justify any Means?

And one of the worst parts of this: Historians and Attorneys who condone this. People who should know better, have jumped on the bandwagon that as President you can do whatever the Fuck you wish and no one - NO ONE - should be able to hold you accountable. I don't know the Constitution by heart, though I have read it a few times, but I don't remember ever reading that everyone except the President is required to obey the Law. George Bush is a criminal; those who defend this action are abetting a criminal activity. We need to make them pay under the Laws of our Great Nation before its Bloody Fucking Too Late! Impeach Bush; Impeach Cheney! Throw the rest of the criminals out!

WHY ARE CONSERVATIVE BLOGGERS APOLOGISTS FOR CRIME?

2006-01-06T14:12:00.000-05:00

Almost to a man (and woman), conservative bloggers appear to be apologists for illegality, incompetence, corruption, and cronyism. They write arguements which essentially state that almost anything done by this administration and the Conservative members of Congress and the Courts is valid and should not be questioned. George Bush admits to not following the very law he stated he was going to follow; The Abramoff Scandal will bring down numerous members of the Republican Party; The War in Iraq continues to be nothing more than a huge clusterfuck; New Orleans has been decimated because of cronyism; and on and on and on. But conservative bloggers act as though none of these things are true (i.e. factual) and if they are true, they don't really matter. So why is that?

I have a theory, of course, and that is that conservative bloggers are more enamored of having what they consider some power than they are of really effecting change for the better. You can see it in how they write their pieces. All their arguements always come back to the same thing: Will this or won't this boost their group's electability? Will this or won't this boost George Bush's poll numbers? They do not discuss whether the facts as stated are good or bad for the country - they don't care about the country - they discuss whether it will help get their candidates elected. They do not have common cause with the working class, with the middle class, with the average citizen. They have common cause with only one thing: Their party.

You can see it in how they behave towards anyone who might actually disagree. Representative Murtha was a fellow traveler until he chose to speak out. Suddenly, he was a traitorous piece of scum who didn't deserve the medals he earned. Andrew Sullivan, who's been a good conservative for quite awhile, is now just another fag to be bashed. It's just amazing the level of complete and utter venom these conservative bloggers are willing to heap upon anyone who doesn't just roll over and let them have their way. They are, to say the least, reprehensible. They are also all cowards.

Terror - It Ain't What It Used to Be!

2005-11-29T12:42:00.001-05:00

The following is sung to the tune of the Monty Python hit "Spam" - Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror - wonderful terror -

You get the idea. The Weasel in Chief is giving another speech on the War on Terror. It feels to me that at this point he's giving a speech on the War on Terror about once a week. Hell, he went to the Far East and, guess what? - gave a speech on the War on terror! I don't know about you, but I'm all terrored out. I mean, let's be real; we've had speeches out the whazoo about the War on Terror, we've had god knows how many elevated threat levels - whatever happened to those anyway; guess he got re-elected and all the threats just went away - and I don't feel any safer from the Preznit's constant reminders that we're at War. I do, however, feel numb from all his talk.

He has given one of these speeches at least once a week now and hasn't said anything new. What's more, it's all talk. There have been no new developments. bin Laden is still running around; Zarqawi is still blowing people up, US troops are dying in both Afghanistan and Iraq daily, London was still bombed, Jordan was bombed, and nothing seems to be getting done - other than possibly the Arab World hates us that much more.

Karen Hughes goes on a mission to fix our reputation in the MidEast; well, she pretty much got heckled. Condi Rice has to run to Israel because they need to broker a deal which has been already brokered. And the Idiot in Chief - he keeps saying the same thing, doing the same thing, because he knows he's the chosen one. I just have to ask, are we really better off now than we were five years ago? I know there are people out there who just love the jackass in charge, but how would they answer that question, I wonder. I know that at this point, I'm all terrored out.

2005-11-23T13:39:00.000-05:00

A SIMPLE ENOUGH QUESTION

GM announced yesterday that they would be laying off 30,000 employees and closing 9 plants and reducing capacity in 3 others. After all that, many of the people who watch this sort of thing - I admit to being only partially informed - say that this will not bring GM back to profitablity. It will, hwoever, trim GM's workforce. My question is: Has anyone thought about trimming the top?

I wonder how much the Executive Team of GM makes? Do you think there might be substantial savings there if the execs took a pay cut? How much money could GM save just by getting rid of some of the executive perks? And why aren't GM stockholders outraged by this?

Don't get me wrong; I'm not an economist (I don't even play one on TV), nor do I know all the ins and outs of GM. But you gotta figure that the CEO and the other major execs are getting paid pretty well. Does there stewardship of the company warrant that they get paid so well? Are they really doing that good a job?

And let's not forget that exec pay in the US is all out of whack! Why, for instance, should the CEO of Delphi and his team get 448 bonuses when they are asking their employees to take 50% pay cuts? Why, for instance, could K-Mart ask for bonuses for its exces when they had just announced that they were closing over 700 stores and declaring bankruptcy? Have these people no shame?

I had this discussion with someone the other day, and he argued that the market isn't out of whack; it works perfectly fine. But thinking about it, that's so much horse-hockey. For every CEO that proves to be more than competent, you have 10 that can't put their pants on without help. For evey CEO that raises shareholder value, there are at least 10 who think that the company they run is their personal piggybank and the shareholders are their personal loan officers - only they don't have to pay back the loans.

Look, the market is nuts! The oil companies get subsidies - Why? Big Agra gets subsidies - Why? Pharma gets subsidies - Why? Tax policy benefits the richest .01% - Why? Our priorities are so screwed up when it comes to money that we think people who are good at making it, or taking it from others - because let's face it, the CEO is just an employee - are somehow more competent and smarter than those that don't make a ton of it. We need to realign, folks, because if we don't we are going to be thoroughly screwed!

2005-11-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP!

Somwehere in the great scheme of things, there are republicans that actually understand what the words "telling the truth" means. Somewhere, they are doing just that. But, unfortunately, most of these people are not in Washington...

The Bush Administration continues to put forth the arguement that everyone had the same intelligence, so eveyrone is culpable. Two things:

1) Everyone did not have the same intelligence because the intelligence gets filtered through the White House (as they are considered the primary client of the Intelligence Community - nearly everyone with half-a-brain and knows a little about politics knows this), and

2) Does that mean that the White House no longer believes that its reasons for going to War are valid? It certainly sounds like this is what they're saying. They're no longer defending the reasons; they're defending their mistakes.

As to the rest of the GOP; When did the Republican Party decide that they hated the majority of Americans? Have to ask. The latest Spending Cuts Bill - even watered down - hurts the poor, the lower middle and middle class families the most. Don't think so; let's look. Cuts to Medicaid, cuts to Education, cuts to social programs which aid the poor and the middle class.

On the other hand, pretty good to you if you happen to be wealthy or a corporation.

And we're not even talking about the sheer, unadulterated corruption of these people. Tom Delay's No. 1 guy was just indicted on criminal charges. Tom Delay! Mr. Integrity himself! We've got the GOOPer leadership calling most Americans traitors because most Americans disagree with how this War is being fought. We've got multiple examples of corruption in the CPA - two indictments in as many days. We've got Bridges to nowhere - Stevens gets to keep the money, it's just not earmarked directly. We've Bill Frist doing insider stock trading - anyone remember Martha Stewart?

But somehow the Rethugs continue to roll along, chewing up our country and destroying our freedoms, because when it comes right down to it, they just fucking lie so well and so often it's hard to catch them at all of those lies.

This post is all over the place. They just make me so angry. Why can't we have a legitimate government?

2005-11-16T17:28:00.000-05:00

YOU CAN FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME!

Here's what scares me: 73% of people who identify themselves as Republicans still back George Walker Bush, President 43 or George the Third as I like to call him. 36% of people polled still have a favorable impression of Bush! 44% of respondents to a recnt poll seem to believe that Torture is okay in some intsances. Not as a last resort mind you, but in some instances! These things scare me.

After five years of the present administration completely screwng up - New Orleans underwater, huge budget deficits, 45 million people now without healthcare, a poverty rate that is increasing by 1 million people annually, declining middle class income, a declining middle class, attakcs on Science and Education by Religious Zealots who respect neither, and, oh by the way, an increasingly Deadly War in Iraq! - there are still people who think these guys are all right! If Clinton had made just one of the cock-ups that Bush had done, he would not only have been impeached, he would have been found guilty and thrown out of office! But Bush...

How can you be this lucky? How can you be this corrupt, this incompetent, this serially sociopathic and still be considered by the majority of your Party as basically okay? How can people of average intelligence still consider this a legitimate administration when we know for a fact that the Vice President of the United States advocates Torture, something which is against the Law - not just in the Geneva Conventions - but in our Laws as well! How can this administration be considered legitimate when we know for a fact that they lied to the American people simply for the purpose of getting us into a War to fulfill some sort of messianic-matyr complex on the part of the President? How can this administration be considered legitimate when every economic and social action it has taken has been to the detriment of the very people it is supposed to be protecting? And yet...

36% of respondents still think he's doing a good job. 73% of his Party still think he's doing a good job. 44% advocate the use of Torture.

2005-11-15T12:05:00.000-05:00

THE NYT LAYS DOWN FOR THE GOOPERS AGAIN!

I haven't written here in a long while - a really long while - but it's time to start again. The world just keeps getting weirder and the US just keeps getting stupider (good word, that). If you want proof, all you need to do is look on the front page of the NYT and then look on the list of breaking stories on the online front page of the NYT.

Just look at the headline of this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/politics/15cong.html?hp&ex=1132117200&en=1b0f7720627f5fd3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Senate Republicans Pushing for a Plan on Ending the War in Iraq

Okay, that makes you think the Repubs are actually pushing for a plan to end the war in Iraq. Great; except that they're getting out ahead of the Dems in this. That sucks, right?

Only that's not the story. If you look down to the right on the AP and Reuters column of breaking news, you get this headline:

Senate Approves G.O.P.-Backed Iraq Proposal

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Iraq.html

Again, it looks like the Repubs are out in front of the curve on this. But read the first three lines of the AP story, and you get a whole 'nother interpretation! Here they are for your viewing pleasure:

"The Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday easily defeated a Democratic effort to call for President Bush to outline a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."

Now, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but if you're calling for a plan to end the war in Iraq, doesn't that by necessity also call for a timetable for that plan. And if you're a Repub and you're voting against a timetable, aren't you in essence also voting against planning to end the war?

So what appears exceedingly obvious is that the headline writer for the Times (an editor, probably) is a GOOper apologist who doesn't even read the stories he writes headlines for or does and just ignores the information contained in those stories. This is just the worst kind of jingoist journalism! Whatever happened to the truth! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

2004-09-24T12:46:00.000-04:00

What is America?

I'm asking this question because I don't think I know anymore. There used to be a time when I believed The United States of America was a Grand Experiment, a Beacon of Hope to an ailing world. Yes, we Americans were callous at times, oblivious most of the time to what was happening in the rest of the world, even rude in our ignorance. But we were essentially good. Not just to others throughout the world, but good to each other. We tried to help our fellow citizens; we tried to make our country better. That, it seems, is no longer something which we care about.

There are intelligent people from many different walks of life who now believe we no longer owe any responsibility to our fellow citizens. We no longer need to take care of the weak nor need to try to improve the lot of the impoverished. "I have mine - to hell with yours" seems to be the new American motto. If you can't cut it, whatever that means, you should just up and die and leave a space for someone who can. So this is who we have become.

And these arguments are not put forth honestly so that the rest of us can look at their merits and debate them; they are driven into our heads as polemics about lowering taxes, about accountability, about responsibility. And I'm left to wonder, who is more responsible: A a single working mother of two who has two jobs, tries to get the best education for her children that she can and tries to keep them out of trouble; or the son of a well-heeled businessman and politician who has never worked an honest day in his life and has relied on the connections that his family's wealth has provided for him to destroy the very fabric of our nation?

But the rest of us are not without guilt in this matter. We let these dishonest people control the debate. We let them tell us what they want to talk about and let them demand our attention. And we let their surrogates do the same. Right-wing ideologues who preach hate and fear and loathing of other Americans, these other Americans not being rich enough, not malleable enough, not willing enough to follow blindly.

I'm sure if anyone reads this, they will say "Oh, look - He blames the Right; He must be a Liberal!" The question is, how can you be an American and not be a liberal? How can you propound ideas of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without having a liberal-bent. These principles come from Liberal philosophy. These principles encourage equality of opportunity for everyone, not just those to the manor born, or those who have pretensions of being to the manor born. But that is not what happens on the Right.

Their argument is and always has been, that we have it, you don't, and we see no reason to give you the chance to achieve. Theirs is a zero-sum game. If you succeed, it must mean that someone else has failed. How else to explain the world. The concept of unlimited opportunity is beyond their limited perception. That is why it is always "us" vs "them." They cannot conceive that all of us can succeed if we band together and work for the common good. In their world-view, there will always be only a certain number of winners and many, many more losers.

So they lie and badger and harass the rest of us. And they run our institutions and complain about being treated unfairly by the very institutions they run. And the great majority remains befuddled. We must not let them win. If we let them win, we are done. That will be the end of America and the very dream we have worked so hard to preserve.

2004-07-30T12:58:00.000-04:00

The Oblivious Fringe

I've been reading many of the blogs out there, including some of the more out-there blogs, and I have to wonder out loud just what some of these people are thinking?

Given the present political climate, given what the present administration has done and wishes to do in the future, I just don't understand what exactly these people find so compelling?

Andrew Sullivan, for example, says that he cannot support George W. Bush because of his position on Gay Marriage and his blurring of the boundaries between Religion and Government. The second issue leads directly to the first, and why is he suddenly surprised by Bush's blurring of the distinction? Bush is a Born-Again Christian in that way that only the religiously fanatical can be! He believes that only the righteous, as defined by the Born-Again Christian community he belongs to, will achieve Heaven and that they are the only ones who "know" what is right for all of us. Which, of course, has led to the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fanatics are battling the fanatics. There are other, more prozaic issues involved here as well, but this is the one that is talked about least. The Bush Administration has populated the highest levels of Governemnt with individuals who make Cotton Mather and Torquemada look like agonists. So why is Andrew Sullivan surprised?

But what really gets me is that there are people who have excoriated him for his position! Not only do they believe that he is misguided, they attack him for being a traitor to the cause. Not all of his readers, but a good segment seem to believe that if you have misgivings about Bush, you are insane.

Now, let's be clear: Andrew Sullivan is a homosexual. He is for homosexuals having the same civil rights as white men in the US. So for him, the Gay Marriage Amendment is a big issue. Therefore, if he decides Bush does not represent his position on this issue, why shouldn't he change who he votes for?

But that's only part of the problem. If you're a libertarian, believing that the Government has no right to be in your bedroom or making choices about what you read and say, how can you then argue that Bush and Co. are the best choice for the country? We already know that the Administration wants more access to your private information; We already know that the Patriot Act allows for secret trials and being held without being charged; We already know that John Ashcroft wishes not only to make the Patriot Act permanent but to actually strengthen rules that would further encroach on our liberties; yet there are people who call themselves libertarians and conservatives who support an Administration whose every position pushes the very boundaries of restricting our liberties and would push them even further. And we're not talking about the "so-called" liberal causes here; We're talking about what books you decide to check out of the library or who you decide to sleep with. We're talking about what you do in your own home when it doesn't impact on anyone but yourself. We're talking about giving up what makes America America because of the moral beliefs of a bunch of religous fanatics. Something like The Taliban or Iran.

2004-07-27T17:04:00.000-04:00

One Nation...Indivisible

I've been thinking a great deal about the Pledge of Allegiance lately. Particularly the part which talks about one nation...indivisible. It's a beautiful sentiment, stirring in its way about an America which is a whole. Too bad, it's not true.

We are greatly divided as a nation. All you have to do is look at your neighbors in many cases to see just how divided we are. We are divided over religion, over marriage, over what is considered appropriate bedroom behavior, over The War in Iraq, the Economy, Education, and on and on. But the thing is, we don't have to be.

It's not like we're divided because we believe fundamentally different things; we don't. I'm making an assumption here, but I would suspect that most of us want for our children to have a good education and a good life, that most of us want the same for ourselves, that we want to feel safe, that we want to be free to lead productive lives, that we want to be healthy, wealthy and wise, and that we don't want interference in our lives. I would think that that is true all along the spectrum, whether you consider yourself a liberal or a conservative, a democrat or a republican or an independent.

So why are we so divided? What makes me believe that there is such a huge division? I'll tell you right now, I consider myself to be a pretty liberal individual - and by liberal I mean one in the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition of one - I think that we should help each other, I think that we are responsible to and for each other, and I think that we can do good to and for each other. The thing is, I don't think that all conservatives disagree with me. So I have to ask again: Why are we so divided?

I think part of the problem may be summed up in one word: Hypocrisy. Whole groups of people profess to have your best interests at heart - parents, teachers, ministers, politicians, businessmen, you name it - but what it comes down to is that most don't believe you can run your life as well as they can. And they're being pretty hypocritical when they put that premise forward. Ministers screw up; teachers screw up; politicians screw up (really, really screw up!), business people screw up (Really, really, really screw up!), but somehow all these people seem to know what's best for us! And of course, I don't mean all of them. Many of these people try hard to be understanding, tolerant, humble, and thoughtful. The problem is that the small majority that aren't, generally are the loudest and do the most damage.

Somehow, the intolerant blowhard whose an ex-alcoholic and ex-drug abuser and couldn't hold down a job without his Daddy's help for years is the one calling the shots. He's self-righteous as all get-out about what needs to be done and who needs to do it, even when he has no clue and wouldn't do it when he could.

And their weapon is fear and division. To make you hate and dispise the other, whatever that other may be, so that they can get a firmer hold on your life, so that they can better control your thoughts, your being, your very family. All because they're a bunch of hypocrits who don't care one iota about you and me.

The last two paragraphs are about the Bush Administration. That's who they are. The "We know better than you" people. But the Bush Administration couldn't have gotten to where it is now without all the other "We know better than you" people: the religious leaders who tell you to keep it tucked in even while their sneeking around on the sly; the government types who attack like rabid dogs while their doing the same thing they are condemning others for doing; the pundits on TV who lie about where they came from, what they've done, and then distort the facts to fit their limited world-view, the organizations who use the word truth when what they really mean is their version of the "truth."

If we want to be a nation easily divided, all we have to do is listen to the crap, listen to the noise, and learn to hate just like they want us to.

Don't listen. Think for yourself. Ask your neighbor what s/he wants out of life. Be who you are.