THE GRAND INSURRECTION PARTY AND THE POLITICS OF TREASON

When does political hyperbole rise to the level of treason? That is my question for today.

First, it started with the Birthers, those who sought to undermine the legitimacy of a newly elected President with fabricated conspiracy theories about the authenticity of his birth certificate and the legality of his presidency.

Next came the Tea Baggers, followed by the town hall hooligans, followed by gun-toting thugs at presidential rallies, followed by GOP Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst of “Liar!” before a special session of Congress, followed by GOP Congresswomen Michelle Bachmann calling for armed resistance against Obama’s legislative agenda, followed by GOP Congressman Trent Franks threatening a Birther lawsuit against Obama and calling him an “enemy of humanity,” followed by GOP Governor Rick Perry calling for Texas to secede from the union, followed by Newsmax columnist John Perry dreaming of a military coup against President Obama, followed by a FaceBook poll asking: “Should Obama be killed?” Get the picture! A daily diet of demonization and vituperation.

For months, we have heard the repeating rhythms of Obama the Communist, Obama the Socialist, Obama the Islamofascist, Obama the Jihadist … and the steady and relentless drumbeats of a GOP run amuck driving us towards civil disorder and insurrection.

There was a time when the party out of power was termed the Loyal Opposition. We called them “loyal” because there was always a tacit assumption that the losing party would accept the results of a fair and decisive election, would always accede to the will of the people, would recognize traditional standards of civility and protocol, and always play by the rules. No longer.

The party out of power has devolved from the Loyal Opposition Party to the "Grand Obstructionist Party" to the "Oppositional-Defiant Party,” and now the “Grand Insurrection Party.” The time-honored art of political compromise and consensus is dead. The GOP has opted out of participatory democracy.

Samuel Johnson once said: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Your humble Octopus disagrees. The U.S. Constitution affords plenty of mud-wiggle room for scoundrels. If patriotism is the first refuge, the First Amendment is the next, where cowards assert their bigotry and stupidity by saying anything they want under Constitutional protection, or so they think. The Second Amendment offers yet another refuge: When reason and civil discourse fail, the malcontents and misfits of the GOP invoke this Amendment to incite others to violence by proxy, or so they think. The fear-mongering, hate-mongering scoundrels of the GOP overlook a fundamental point.

We have the same rights. We won the last two elections. We have a mandate to reverse the failed policies of the GOP whether they like it or not. With each passing day, the GOP has pushed political discourse beyond the fringes of civilization, and the time is long overdue to hold them accountable before more people get killed. I will defend my politics, my principles, and my person with words as I must and with arms (all 8 of them) if necessary. Octopus hath spoken.

The Coulter Lesson

For years we leftward leaning folk have been lining the pockets of Ann Coulter. Yes we have. Let's not make the same mistake again by lining Sarah Palin's pockets as well.

AC is a mouthpiece. She holds no political office. Her only power (and source of wealth) is her mouth and the people who hire her to speak with it. Currently this is also true of the GOVERNOR WHO QUIT. She is also nothing but a hired mouthpiece with little to say of worth.

AC has made a bloody fortune by writing books about liberals who attack her. Yeah - it can pretty much be watered down to those simple terms. She self-righteously whines about how we whine about how mean she is. She scoffs. She mocks. We get mad. We yell & call her names. She gets asked back on talk shows to talk about the LOUD liberals complaining about her, she mocks, she smirks ad infinitum.

We leftward leaning folk VALIDATE her every time we mention her name. Every time we buy one of her books to rip her to shreds. Every time we even mention her books. She has the last LUCRATIVE laugh ripping us to shreds in turn in her next book! She loves us! We are fodder for her greedy egocentric appetite. If we would just IGNORE her she just might no longer be all that controversial. It takes two sides to spin a controversy and we continually play into her game like suckers.

S. Palin is on course do just the same thing. The title of her forthcoming book says it all - I refuse to actually name it - it deserves no such validation from me. You can bet that her publisher is COUNTING on we hotheads on the left EMBOLDENING SP to her followers by attacking her book. Just like AC. And an emboldened martyr sells books and speeches to her MANY faithful followers.

Let's not make her a martyr like AC - which is precisely what AC has always counted her riches on - our allowing her to play victim by our attacking of her.

So let's just pretend that SP hasn't written a book. OK? Let's be mute on the subject. Entirely. Let's refuse to be suckers this time. She's spoiling for a fight but who says we have to play? Sure some of her followers will buy it. And they'll try to needle us with what she says in it, they'll try to provoke a heated response. So let's NOT give it to them. Let's make SP sell her book (and her speaking engagements) on the merits (?!) of what it/she says and NOT on the merits of its author's self-manufactured martyrdom.

Democratic Hall of Shame

Two amendments proposing a public option were shot down in the Senate Finance Committee today: the first amendment was crafted by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and rejected in a 15-8 vote (five Democrats joined all the Republicans), and the second one, by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), was killed by a vote of 13-10, with three Democrats joining the Republicans.

Here they are, the Infamous Five (really GOPers in sheep's clothing):

Sen. Max Bupkus Baucus (D-Mont.):



Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.):


Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.):


Sen. Kent Clueless Conrad (D-N.D.):



and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.):


As HuffPo reports, there were predictable eruptions of idiocy during SFC's deliberations:

Republican senators argued that the public option would bankrupt the country and lead to a single-payer system.* "Government is not a competitor. Government is a predator," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).

Yet the GOP also defended Medicare, which Democrats took pains to point out was a government-run plan.

Sen. Rockefeller is not daunted by today's defeat. As he told HuffPo, "The public option is on the march," a view echoed by Robert Reich in his recent blog post.

So let's do our civic duty and deluge our representatives' offices, again, with e-mails, phone calls and faxes, to make sure that PO stays alive and we won't have to resort to a single prayer option for our health care needs.

*And it's a bad thing...?

Cross-posted at The Middle of Nowhere.

Best Blogger

In case anyone hasn't heard, GottaLaff at The Political Carnival has been recognized on CNN for breaking news about a Facebook poll, said polls being on the question of whether the nation's first black president should be assassinated. That's why I'm giving her a Best Blogger nod. She's done a lot to mainstream the progressive 'sphere.

Granted that the subject matter is all kinds of awful. If you read this post yesterday, then you know how angry the poll makes me.

But have you looked at the poll? The options are...well...read for yourself:

A) Yes

B) Maybe

C) If he cuts my health care

D) No

The only correct answer, of course, is E) WHY THE FRAKKING HADES WOULD YOU ASK ME THAT?! But I digress.

D is all the way at the end, making it the least-likely random choice. Anyone eager to answer "yes" gets the option first. Those smart enough not to click while Teh Silent Unmarked Helicopters™ circle are given a chance to hint their true feelings. Then there's a chance for someone to voice a specific beef with Obama's agenda before you choose the only nearly-correct answer in the poll.

Hypothesis: this is a poll designed to learn the cumulative total of Stupid, Wacky, and Crazy on Facebook.

Opinions?

WE WANT YOUR NATIONAL TREASURE!

Pope Benedict XVI travelled to Prague, Czech Republic this week to try to revitalize (drum up business) for the Church which lost most of its vast influence under the communist regime. After years of communist rule, the Czech Republic remains a largely secular society. In fact, many Czechs thought his trip irrelevant while some were downright hostile.

Why the hostility? Well, it seems that since the fall of communism in the Czech Republic, the Vatican has had an ongoing battle to reclaim St Vitus Cathedral. I had the rare honor to stand within the walls of this cathedral back in the 1970s and I hope to do it again in the spring.


St Vitus is more than just a large elaborate piece of architecture; it is a national treasure. Surrounded by Prague Castle, St Vitus is the final resting place for many Bohemian kings and Czech patron saints, including St Wenceslaus. Kings and queens were coroneted there and the cathedral is now home to the crown jewels.

Many Czechs believe the Vatican is more interested in property than people’s souls and I tend to agree when it comes to the acquisition of St Vitus. The rich history of the Czech people lives and breathes within the walls of the cathedral and the castle and should be entrusted to no one BUT the Czech people.

Satan Lives In Alabama

Those of you who know me from Osborne Ink are aware that I blog too much already, but this land-bound writer cannot resist the siren song of the (O)CT(O)PUS. This being my first post for The Swash Zone, I suppose an introduction and mission statement is in order.

Beginning with the personal: I discovered my liberalism on the day in 1980 that my third-grade teacher Mrs. Huffington (an ironic name) took my incomplete pencil-drawing of a dragon and destroyed it amid senile mutterings of Satanic influence. My inspiration -- a deluxe vinyl LP of Rankin-Bass' The Hobbit, including storybook -- was confiscated for a day. Mrs. Huffington's proud ignorance -- indeed, one could call it arrogance -- also led her to dispatch the classroom's sole Jehovah's witness to the office every day so she could lead the room in the Pledge of Allegiance.

When my father was informed, his reaction was as near to ballistic as I have ever seen from a northeastern liberal. This gentle soul, later ordained an Episcopal deacon and deeply involved in prison ministry programs, tore the flabby educator a new metaphorical orifice.

This incident, like many others, made it difficult for me or my family to maintain a social circle outside of the small academe of Northwest Alabama. We were transplants from the north -- and from a way of thinking that clashed with southern culture.

My family hails from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line; my maternal ancestors escaped Savannah ahead of Sherman's army, resettling in Missouri and then New England. But my paternal line is of pure Yankee extraction, including one of the early presidents of Harvard. I am the direct descendant of men who fought the bloody British at Bunker Hill and invented American higher education.

From an early age, then, I felt called to rebel against the tyranny of Teh Stupid™. As the 1980s progressed, Mrs. Huffington's attitudes were endemic to Alabama and the conservative movement as a whole. The voices raised in opposition to Harry Potter books today come from the same people who picketed The Last Temptation of Christ in 1987 and sued the state to have my American history textbook replaced with a more "Christian-friendly" (read: less informative) one.

Before I was even old enough to vote, I was rebelling through action and opinion. My first letter to the editor was published two years before I had a driver's license. One year later, mine was the second signature establishing the Alabama chapter of the ACLU -- right below my father's. Needless to say, I became inured to the harshest criticisms long ago.

While it may seem a myopic product of a provincial life, the sum total of my experiences has led me to form an Alabama Theory of Wingnuttery™. To wit:

All wingnuttery originates in Alabama.

Indeed, a strong case can be made that no original wingnuttery has been formulated outside the state of Alabama in over a century. Every John Bircher tract, every Phyllis Schlafly speech, every Michelle Malkin blog post has a prologue in this state. Could I only share a scrapbook of op-ed clippings with you, you'd find that the teabaggery of August is perfectly predicted by stupidity published in 1989.

I live on top of the epicenter of all wingnuttery.

Dangerous? Perhaps. Perhaps my presence here is a karmic punishment. Because this is the second thing you must know about Alabama: one cannot escape it. Like a black hole, Alabama exerts its own special force on sons and daughters. Many friends have noted that as far as we can get away (as far as the other side of the world) Alabama inevitably sucks us back in. It isn't that we want to return, but that we find ourselves back in the very towns where, as teenagers, we plotted escape.

Wingnuttery produces its own gravity.

It has mass. Like the black hole at the center of a galaxy, it is the circling drain-hole of rational thinking. It is a malevolent intention dressed up in the lamb's skin of piety. It seeks to turn us all into illiterate peasants reciting Bible verses that we don't understand. Wingnuttery is worse than mere evil: it is malignant, aggressive, and aimed directly at the foundations of scientific civilization. It is, in a word, Satanic.

Satan lives in Alabama. I live in hell.

They say the devil hides in the details; the state constitution here is the longest legal document in the world. Longer than Moby Dick and the King James Bible put together. Written with the intention of denying education to black children, today it manages only to accomplish the mission of centralizing all decisions in the state capitol where our legislature meets for 30 days a year. Establishing the most regressive tax system in America, our state constitution has been amended more than 800 times.

And there you have it. I make these claims not from ego, but from the sad horror of Dante.

The plots thicken

I don't know why, but since the Vietnam era, the hawkish types seem to have preferred the world "embolden" to the more conventional "encourage." It may be simply that we prefer not to use the word "courage" when talking about our enemies, but figuring that one out is beyond any area of expertise I might pretend to. None the less, the Cheneyesque assumption that Obama, by being Obama, the liberal/fascist/Commie/Muslim born in Kenya and Indonesia will spur or "embolden" Islamic enemies to attack us to a greater extent than the refulgent presidency of George W. Bush did, is sure to be in the news again.

The last few days have seen the arrest of people involved in credible bomb plots, including the attempt to blow up a skyscraper in Dallas, Texas. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19-year-old illegal immigrant from Jordan was arrested after he dialed a number on his cell phone that he had been duped by Federal Agents into believing would detonate a large bomb. He had been under close surveillance for some time.

This follows on the heels of the arrest of Denver resident Najibullah Zazi as part of another bomb conspiracy that had advance to the point of assembling the chemical components. Both of these plots were foiled by what seems to be good police work and not anything resulting from the massive powers given to the President by the infamous "Patriot Act."

It would be hard to justify the opinion that the 2001 attack was a one-shot deal not to be repeated and it's been a no brainer to predict that the next attack wouldn't involve hijacking airplanes. Although Zazi may have received training in Pakistan and Smadi claims to be a "soldier of bin Laden," these plots may have less to do with anything hatched at the top levels of some central organization than with the more diverse worldwide culture of anti-Western hatred. It's hard to say these attempts wouldn't have happened if Afghanistan had been cleansed of the Taliban orQaeda training camps. Of course the threat remains vanishingly small to any individual but it's important to note that Smadi wanted to blow up Wells Fargo as a blow to our banking system -- and it would have been.

But again, the FBI seems to have done its job and without waterboards or Transylvanian castle dungeons or reading the mail of the Quaker churches and without bombing any country back to the dark ages and this makes the idea that Obama has disabled our ability to deal with terrorists less of a credible talking point.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

New Swash Zone Members:
Matt Osborne of Osborne Ink and Elizabeth Mika of The Middle of Nowhere have accepted invitations to join our community. Matt also writes for the Huffington Post. Check out his latest article, Oh, the Horror! NEA Under Fire for Community Organizing. Elizabeth is a psychologist who shares our concerns for healthcare reform, progressive politics, and social justice. Her diverse interests include the arts, cinema, and literature … all in all, a true cephalopod. Welcome, Matt and Elizabeth.

And an Anthology of Essays:
About a month ago, Lorette Luzajic, a Toronto-based writer, contacted me and asked permission to include this post, THE SOUL MURDER OF MICHAEL JACKSON AND THE CULTURE OF VICTIM BLAME, in an anthology of essays. Permission granted. Currently in production, the book will be released sometime in early November.

SINGING HIS PRAISES

There is a video making the rounds that is disturbing no matter what direction you are coming from. I am suspicious of the authenticity of this event for several reasons. First, Fox News is all over it, second, it was released just two days before President Obama’s speech to school children and third, they make a point of having the children recite repeatedly, “Barak Hussein Obama” (emphasis mine).

The repeated use of the President’s middle name is, of course, a favorite tactic of right wingnuts who wish to link Obama with Saddam Hussein. Which is as silly as associating anyone named Charlie with multiple murders or looking for an axe in the hand of anyone named Lizzie.

I may be tilting at windmills here – perhaps this is NOT some right wingnut’s hapless scheme. It could be some left wingnut trying to reshape childrens’ minds. Either way, this shameless use of innocent children is an abuse and betrayal of parents’ trust.

The video can be seen HERE and it is the accompanying message and title posted on Youtube which also adds to my suspicions that this was purposefully orchestrated.

If I had children still in school, I would seriously consider home schooling...

Love in the time of Republican insanity

Face it, it's been downhill since that socialist Lincoln freed the slaves. In no time at all, we gave women the vote and only a hundred years after that bearded Marxist in the bad hat betrayed the freedom of slave owners, the descendants of those slaves could vote too. The speed of our nation down the slippery slope to Socialism is breathtaking. Only a century after those lazy slaves were allowed basic human rights, the damned Liberals were insisting that God was wrong in separating the races and wanted to allow interracial marriage. There will no stopping this slide and there's no fooling Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) it's all about galloping socialism.

"If there's a push for a socialist society, a society where the foundations of individual rights and liberties are undermined and everybody is thrown together living collectively off of one pot of resources earned by everyone, this is one of the goals they'd have to go to, is same sex marriage, because it has to plow through marriage in order to get to their goal. Not only is it a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept, in the final analysis."

Makes your head swim, doesn't it? The incisive and trenchant logic, I mean. Why isn't everyone smart enough to see that denying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is our last defense against Socialism? Why aren't they smart enough to see that we need government to take over everything in our lives from our morals to our freedom to our love life in the name of smaller, less intrusive government? Thank God for Iowa!

Tea stains

Maybe Chuck Norris has been kicked in the head once too often. Maybe he deserves another one. He's been barking about being true to the "spirit of our founders" by avoiding the use of a contemporary US flag to wave over their "tea parties" unless the flag is first desecrated by staining it with tea. His op-ed in World Net Daily links to a WND page peddling pre-desecrated flags for $73.50. I don't know if Norris gets a piece of the action.

"If you insist on posting a modern USA flag too, then get one that has been tea stained, to show your solidarity with our founders."

The idea of being lectured to about political philosophies of the Enlightenment and the visions of the somewhat disparate men who drafted our constitution by an intellectual midget like Norris is galling enough but the spectacle of being urged to stain the flag by people who have been clogging up the legislative process for over 40 years trying to make it a crime to deface a flag is too much to let slip by without at least one Wilsonian "you lie!"

One of the things I'm sure our "founders" would agree on is that presidents are not to be chosen or un-chosen by mobs of belligerent barbarians carrying guns in the street. In fact the wisdom of letting the populace have much direct power was much discussed and protected against by the electoral college and the indirect election of senators.

Another thing I suspect they would agree on is that we the people are the founders of a country designed to be a constant work in progress through the institutions designed for that purpose. For someone who does nothing in this world but play a tough guy beating the crap out of stage ruffians in the movies to raise rabble that the rest of us will have to deal with is an outrage. For someone forgetful or dishonest enough to pretend that we don't remember him telling us that Bush was president and must be trusted, followed and honored as such, to now preach revolution is disgusting.

If talking about tea is supposed to remind us that taxation without representation is tyranny, perhaps it will remind some of us that we have representation, but Chuck doesn't like or respect the process that elected them. Is representation by self appointed gangs without election and without taxation their Utopian vision or is it just formless and inchoate rage?

Do we need anything better to remind us that Republican views of civilization and government are entirely situational and entirely opposite when they are in power and when they are thrown out in the street? It's all about winning at any cost and about vengeance at any cost when they lose.

Free Marketplace of Love

Back in days gone by, daughters were chattel – sold off, in one way shape or form, by their fathers (or other male guardian) to the highest bidder. Daughters were a way for fathers to secure business alliances, gain political favor, etc etc etc. We sometimes euphemistically refer to this as “arranged marriages” – as if men suffered as much as the women in these marriages which were not grounded in the concept of romance or love. In many societies men could seek solace elsewhere . . . .

But NOW – at least in most portions of our world today – we have progressed towards the idea of marriages being grounded in LOVE. Two people fall in love and choose to marry – no bargaining fathers in the wings. Marriage is now a matter of choice. Love, romance are granted free reign. We have further progressed (some might argue regressed) to the point where marriage – as a legal and/or religious bond – is no longer required. Couples may choose to enter into a committed, monogamous relationship grounded in love free from legal contracts.

Thus far I have admittedly been privileging heterosexual definitions of couple-hood. The whole issue of homosexual couple-hood is historically quite different in that it has faced unique prejudices and stigmatizations. However – on the pure concept of the modern economics of love – to which I would now like to turn - I think homosexual couples face similar issues.

We have now come, it would seem, to a place in societal development where we as individuals are free to pursue our hearts desires in the finding of a mate. We may choose whom we most favor. No more forced sharing of beds with total strangers for the sake of procreation.

Now notice I have NOT brought up the subject of SEX. This is deliberate. Though I of course recognize sex as a component of love I am, in this post, concerned with the concept of love – emotionally experienced love – in its most IDEAL form. I realize trying to separate the two may be a fool’s errand, but bear with me . . .

So it would seem that we have reached nirvana – yes? A free marketplace of love wherein we may choose the best mate for a loving relationship. The world is our oyster. Yeah!

Um – yes – well – how exactly does one do this . . . . . . . . ? How does one determined which shell actually shelters a pearl?

When we need a new car we go to a dealership – or two – or three. We haggle, bargain – go for test drives – eventually choosing the best model that suits us. We strive for the best deal. Well, ok – does this approach work for choosing a mate? Certainly not! You cry. How ridiculous! Love is about the heart . . . it just happens . . . when the time is right . . . like in all of the poems, sonnets . . . it's just . . . (do I hear violins warbling?)

Yes, well – BUT - It’s impossible to spend any time on-line these days without seeing a vast array of dating sites or personals sites advertising their services like car dealerships. In recent years I’ve seen sites advertised for Christians, for Muslims, for seniors, for homosexuals, for wealthy people, and even for those seeking Russian brides (no kidding!). All one has to do, it would seem, is to choose the correct web-site – our modern day matchmakers – then program in one’s personal criteria for the perfect mate & the rest is relationship bliss!!

Hold on – criteria? What the hell does that have to do with love? Can love be so programmed? And thus bought & sold as can other things in a free market economy? If so – how is this progress? Speaking from the female perspective . . . ok – so we are no longer being pimped for economic gain by our fathers but we can now pay, and thereby provide economic gain to, these on-line services to do it for us? If this is true – how hilarious that men are now paying to be pimped!! Progress?? Is love now being pimped like sex?

Now to take a step back – not all loving relationships these days are the product of these latest money-making, love-marketing services. There are people who actually meet their true loves in the simple everyday course of their daily lives. People for whom the sentimental idealism expressed in the song

“Some Enchanted Evening”

You will see a stranger

You will see a stranger, across a crowded room

And somehow you’ll know

You’ll know even then . . . .

[South Pacific]

holds true. However . . .

. . . it would seem, based on simple economics, that for many people this is not the case. That for many people the love marketplace is the only way to seek – and perhaps find – love. Otherwise – would there be so many on-line sites peddling their wares? E-harmony has even made the jump to television marketing – that takes a lot of money. It is a sign of that company’s success at generating revenue based on its pitching of the notion that it can provide a channel towards love. So clearly there are many who sign on for help seeking a loving mate.

If this seems like a cynical post – it actually isn’t. I suspect that many people involved in the free marketplace of love (not sex) are sincerely trying to find love, someone to share their life with. However – in terms of human development, societal development – I find the question of “progress” with respect to the pursuit of love fascinating – especially in light of human history’s less than enlightened past practices with regard to the subject.

We have gained much by simply gaining the right to CHOOSE. But HOW to choose or how to FIND someone to choose is, apparently, a hurdle, a stumbling ground for the actual fulfillment of the CHOICE that we may now freely embrace.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker find me a match

Find me a find, catch me a catch

Night after night in the dark I’m alone

So find me a match of my own

[Fiddler on the Roof]

At this stage in human development it would seem that offering up the concept of FREELY CHOOSING someone to LOVE is like dangling a bunch of grapes in front of thirsty, hungry Tantalus’ nose yet just out of his reach.

The GOVERNOR WHO QUIT goes to China!

Sarah Palin, who quit as governor of Alaska in order to make a ton of money, I mean in order to share her wisdom and rhetorical powers with the rest of the world, gave a speech in China to a closed audience because, apparently, she didn't want the media, uh, general public to hear her criticize [on foreign soil] President Obama, I mean, hear her insightful, well-thought out, unbiased opinions.

In this ground-breaking speech, the "Governor Who Quit" blamed the world financial crisis on government excesses and called for a new round of deregulation and tax cuts for U.S. businesses.

Yes, she actually said that.  Remember how "the government" was passing off those credit default swaps as sound financial investments?  Remember how "the government" made all those toxic deals that led to Merrill Lynch's failure?  You betcha!  We need to give Wall Street more slack--not rein in its greedy, reckless behavior, in order to stabilize our economy.  And if anyone knows anything about the US and the world's economy, the governor who quit her job, who never traveled outside the US until she was 44 years old, and who has a degree in journalism from a community college, it is Sarah Palin!

"We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place," the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia Pacific Markets. "We're not interested in government fixes, we're interested in freedom," she added.

That's right!  Sarah is interested in FREEDOM--except for a woman's right to make decisions about her own body.
 
Mrs. Palin didn't refer to President Barack Obama by name, but said his promise for change during the election hasn't taken hold. She called his campaign promises "nebulous, utopian sounding…Now 10 months later, though, a lot of Americans are asking: more government? Is that the change we want?"

Wow!  She used the words "nebulous" and "utopian!"   Nebulous utopian promises?  Mr. Obama has kept 43 promises, compromised on 11, broken 7,  and 99 are in the works.  But Sarah doesn't let facts get in the way of her criticizing the US president while on foreign soil, does she.

In an echo of last year's presidential campaign, she criticized government policies that result in what she called a redistribution of wealth. "There is no justice in taking from one person and giving to another," she said. "History shows it simply does not work."

Poor Sarah.  Did the Governor Who Quit Her Job forget about the distribution of federal dollars to Alaska and that Alaska gets more FEDERAL money per capita than anywhere else DESPITE astounding revenues at the STATE level coming from he North Slope oil fields?


On health care, Mrs. Palin defended her previous criticisms that the health-care overhaul proposed by Democrats would lead to health-care rationing and what she called "death panels." "It's just common sense that government attempts to solve problems like health care problem will just create new problems." She called for "market friendly" health care reform that gives tax breaks to individuals to buy health insurance.

Yes, tax breaks for college students, children, the chronically unemployed, the underemployed, and the terminally ill.  That'll work, because insurance companies want to cooperate in making sure those populations have complete and necessary coverage with no exceptions for pre-existing conditions.  We've seen how insurers help those in need, haven't we?  And how insurance companies would NEVER deny any American coverage because of typos in an application or because the companies need to make their bottom lines grow while their execs make more money from Americans' medical disasters.

She acknowledged the economic rise of both China and India but called for a vision of Asia in which no one country would dominate.  "I see a China that is stable and peaceful and prosperous. We have optimism that, yes, it is," she said. But she added that the U.S. must work with Asian allies in case "China goes in a different direction."

There you have it.  Simple answers to simple problems from simple minds.

This speech will go on The Governor Who Quit's resume as proof of her foreign policy bona fides for the next presidential election.  Just read that last paragraph and see how deeply and thoroughly she grasps the issues.



Source 

Inside the Mind of Mark Foley

"Ninety percent positive — 99 percent positive from Palm Beach," said the station's general manager, Chet Tart in an e-mail to Florida's Sun-Sentinel. "Negative from other areas."

He's talking about comments on Inside the Mind of Mark Foley, a radio show that debuts at 6:00 PM Eastern on WSVU-AM 960 KHz.

He's still a local hero, never mind the sexual harassment of teenage boys that caused his embarrassed resignation and "rehab." Disgraced Republicans do that: they become heroes like Ollie North, G. GordonLiddy and now Mark Foley -- martyrs to the cause, whatever it is and without that unpleasant martyrdom thing.

Of course Foley is a minor league player compared to the guys that ran illegal wars, illegal arms deals and burglaries out of the White House. He's just a sad fellow compared even to Shouting Joe Wilson or Larry, "Wide Stance" Craig. I'm not upset or surprised that he still has friends and supporters, I'm just amazed at how the public can't wait to get advice and presumablysnarky opinions about the real enemies: Liberals, from him on the radio.

The producer isn't going to risk putting any irate callers on the air though. The show will consist mostly of pre-recorded answers to e-mailed questions. If you're interested, you can reach him at Foley@Seaviewam960.com.

Here come the Judge - again

Orly Taitz -- always in the news. Perhaps you remember my Sept. 16th post about how Judge Clay Land threw her "Birther" suit out of court with a warning that she would face consequences for any further frivolous suits. Ms. Taitz is not so easily dismissed, it seems and Judge Land not kindly disposed toward a motion she filed asking the Judge to reconsider -- at least not toward the part in which she called him a traitor and claimed that the 11th circuit court was subject to "external control" and political pressure from an illegitimate president.

At this point, even the Army Captain on whose behalf the suit was filed has bailed out and apparently can't wait to get to Afghanistan. Taitz now has 14 days to show the infuriated judge why she shouldn't be fined $10,000 for contempt. It will be interesting to see how deep a hole this rabid pit bull can dig herself into. Ten thousand seems a very small fine considering how much her insane crusade has cost us all and I'm hoping she can parlay it into some serious jail time.

IN THE BEGINNING … THERE WERE TWO COWS

(O)CT(O)PUS interrupts our regularly scheduled program for an audacious request: We need cow jokes. What are cow jokes you ask? Well, cow jokes always start with … well … two cows (but not necessarily). In the beginning, cow jokes were used to teach political economics, as examples:

Socialism: You have two cows. You give one to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. You give them to the Government, and the Government then sells you some milk.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Nazism: You have two cows. The Government shoots you and takes your cows.

These days, however, there are no constraints on cow jokes. Here are a few contemporary examples:

Corporate America: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are shocked and surprised when the cow dies.

France: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

Switzerland: You have 5 million cows, none of which belongs to you. You charge the owners for storing them.

Canada: You have two cows. Vous avez deux vaches.

New Zealand: You have two sheep.

Democracy in Florida: You have two cows. The voters are asked to choose. Some prefer one cow over the other. Some vote for both. Some don't vote at all. Some vote for their favorite cow but their votes are declared invalid. Some can't figure out how to vote. Later, a court decides which cow is your favorite.

Diebold: One cow and three elephants, no problem.

Existentialist: There are two cows. One is standing on the beach, staring at the sand ...

Deconstructionism: You have two cows, or is it that two cows have you?

Republicans: You have two cows in a Red state. You send them to a state university that was built and funded with federal money raised by Blue states. You still want another tax cut and call Democrats a bunch of socialists.

Samuel Beckett: COW 1: Moo. COW 2: Moo. They do not leave.

Seinfeld: What’s the deal with those two cows?

Kerouac: Now we must all get out and dig the river and the people and smell two cows.

Nietzsche: Is man only a blunder of two cows? Or are two cows only a blunder of man?

Andrew Sullivan: Cattle are being mutilated all over the county, but you don't speak out until your own ox is gored.

(Credit: Brad Delong, Feb 28, 2004.)

Okay, I think you get the idea. Now, it’s your turn. Make up a cow joke and post it as a comment. Resistance is futile. Have fun.

Lefties

"All political violence is committed by the left in this country,"

said Ann Coulter, continuing her livelihood of making preposterous proclamations designed to inflame any reasonable person enough to produce a counter attack. Given a sufficiently absurd, preposterous or outrageous premise, that becomes so difficult that most of us are reduced to tears and she to witch-like cackles.

Of course the fulcrum of that statement, as it so often is, is the definition of "Left." In this case Left would have to include abortion doctor shooters and bombers, schizophrenics trying to impress Jody Foster, people like Byron De La Beckwith and of course how can we forget those Islamic "Liberals" who blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? If John Wilkes Booth can be a liberal, than there are only three conclusions we can make about Ann Coulter: Insane, dishonest or both.

When something like insisting that there is little danger to a president surrounded by angry opponents equipped with rifles and telescopic sights can inspire even Geraldo Rivera to say she's insane, logic again allows only two conclusions, Rivera is a liberal and ipso facto potentially violent, or he's right and she's insane.

Coulter has a long history of calling the police and claiming people are stalking her. She claims she's more likely to be shot than the President although one wonders about her reaction to being surrounded by armed men carrying signs calling for her assassination. She said nothing however, about being more likely to be fed rat poison than the Federal Judges she deemed worthy of such treatment. I wonder if she has a food taster - or if she eats what humans eat.

With some whores, at least you get sex

From others you get beat up and robbed blind by the pimp and you thank them for it all the way to the emergency room.

You remember Betsy McCaughey, the blond gun for hire who went on the Daily show with a huge bound volume purporting to be HR3200, the proposed health care reform bill. She's the one who thought she was smart enough to shut Jon Stewart up by referring to a mysterious clause on page 418 and was stupid enough not to realize that Stewart had read it and had a copy right there.

She all but slunk out of the studio to a chorus of jeers and allegations that she had received a good deal of money from Cantel Medical Corporation for lying about older people needing to face a "death panel" soon surfaced. She resigned her board of directors position within hours of her humiliation on the Daily Show. ABC News credited McCaughey with launching this lie about death panels on the Fred Thompson radio last July and Stewart is not Thompson. He can, and bothers to read and has more than enough wit to skewer a media whore likeMcCaughey.

I still hear a lot of echoes from the brainless who pick their opinions up from the pavement with a shovel like the guys who used to follow horses, of her earlier article "Deadly Doctors" in the New York Post. It lies about Ezekiel Emmanuel, Rahm Emmanuels's brother the doctor, claiming he wants physicians to forget the Hippocratic oath and focus on “social justice” rather than healing patients. That's code for Communism of course and of course it's another lie and another dollar for Betsy.

She has a long history of lying about health care. Back in 1994 she wrote an article for The New Republic that did a lot to kill the Clinton health care reform effort and which was later retracted by the magazine as being full of lies. The The Atlantic magazine ran a story further debunking her statements. Crooks and Liars yesterday reported that Rolling Stone will soon report her torpedoing of the Clinton plan was bought and paid for by Philip Morris, the Tobacco corporation along with Republican think tanks and the right wing medial.

Of course the people who need to hear this don't hear anything but Beck and the Fat man and like most victories over ignorance and falsehood, it's Pyrrhic, still it makes good reading while you wait for the charity doctors to fly in to treat your pancreatic cancer.

Shame

Palm Beach County, unlike counties in some other places, exhibits a huge disparity amongst residents and the bottom of the barrel is more visible and more in contrast with the upper strata. Stark poverty exists, sometimes within a short walk from breathtaking wealth. The Byzantine palaces of Boca Raton, the Hilton sized seaside abode of Rush Limbaugh can remind the viewer of Monopoly houses dumped at random on the board. Some residents have the chauffeur drive the house keeper to the drug store to pick up their drugs under assumed names, others can't afford medicine without which they have a short time left to live.

Like many third world countries where the mega-rich watch medical relief teams treat the poor from their comfortable adn beautiful estates, Palm Beach County will soon host Remote Area Medical caregivers to treat an estimated treat 4,000 to 5,000 people who don't have medical insurance. According to the Palm Beach Post, RAM's Stan Brock

"will travel to South Florida in a World War II era C-47 cargo plane. It will contain at least 40 dental chairs and the equipment necessary for several dozen Florida-licensed ophthalmologists, optometrists and opticians to examine hundreds of patients and make glasses on the spot. "

Things like dental extractions, fillings, prostate tests mammograms, pediatric exams and H1N1 flu shots and other essential things not available in Emergency Rooms will offered for free, no questions asked. Of course it's embarrassing, or should be, to patriots fond of calling any criticism or negative assessment of our proud country to be so easily compared to Haiti or Honduras. It's also far from being enough to occasionally offer relief from pain and disease to the peasants on an occasional basis, but as long as we're talking about shame, isn't it time to heap some of it on those who are too afraid that the most profitable corporations on Earth might have to operate with profit margins of less than 35% unless we maintain a sick and suffering underclass? What about politicians that can look at the will of three quarters of the population and dismiss it in favor of the corporations that pump billions into their bank accounts?

I'm embarrassed for my country when I see that this is the best we can do and more so when I listen to the excuses: that complete government withdrawal will fix it without leaving millions and millions to die, that a government administered guarantee of insurance coverage will lead to Socialism or Communism aren't more credible fears than the bogus Death Panels when we already have real ones at Cigna and Fortis and Humana. Will some illegal be able to scam the system? Sure, people scam any system, some people buy booze with food stamps, but that doesn't argue that we let a million children starve. The fear that someone will get something for free when we have to pay for it seems all out of proportion to the risk and the risk can be controlled.

No, there is no guaranteed right to health care in the constitution, nor is there to police protection, free public education, public libraries, national parks or municipal fire departments. Certainly no right to Social Security, unemployment or disability insurance. None of those things turned us into Communists, none of them destroyed capitalism, made us less competitive in the world market, stifled entrepreneurship or made any of the hackneyed warnings into a reality. All of them are tokens of civilization and have made us a better country. Single payer health insurance won't do those things either. If we had had it a few decades ago, you might still be driving a Chevy or Chrysler instead of something from the Pacific rim where workers have government health insurance.

Sometimes an opinion is just a lie

It's going to get harder for Fox News to hide behind the giggles, the puffed up pretense to being offended and accusations of insanity if more of the other networks begin to fight back against Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes's lie machine. Brad Blog covers CNN’s Rick Sanchez's, slapdown of Fox. Sanchez, who seems of late to be more willing to speak up against injustice went after Fox's Washington Post ad claiming they were the only network to cover the 9/12 "tea party" in Washington.

It's good to see someone get mad at the ever increasing torrent of lies, distortions and false claims emanating from Fox. It's going, as I said, to get harder to call the few vocal opponents like Olbermann and even Jon Stewart crazy or inconsequential if CNN is willing to run ads as they did yesterday evening, accusing Fox of "Distorting Not Reporting."

The people who send me wingnut e-mails about things that are designed to outrage the ignorant, often preface them with "why isn't the MSM covering this?" although usually, they are and have been. Fox's WaPo ad seems to have been the "enough is enough" trigger and even ABC declared it “demonstrably false.” The claim that no other networks were there was deemed by the Post to be an expression of an opinion not a lie, which of course doesn't help their credibility, regardless of what they claim the meaning of the word "is" is. Sanchez, concluding his diatribe said this:

“Let me address the Fox News Network now, perhaps the most current way that I can — by quoting somebody who recently used a very pithy phrase. Two words, that’s all I need. ‘You lie.’”

Lets hope it becomes a movement. Let's hope the Glennbeckery, the outrageous liberties taken with the news have finally pushed the timid competition into speaking out for the truth - they way they're supposed to.

He lied -- no he didn't

As though on cue, the South Carolina courts have upheld a $10 million dollar award to Jerome Mitchell who purchased health insurance from Fortis in 2001 when he was 18. A year later, when trying to donate blood, he was told he had HIV. Fortis decided he had lied on the application where it asked if he'd been diagnosed with immune deficiency and rescinded his policy.

As we know, although some won't admit it, Insurance companies pay bonuses to their death panels who reject claims and rescind policies, but I'm sure whatever they paid was a drop in the bucket in comparison. The court didn't mince words in upholding Mitchell's claim and upheld $10 million in punitive damages plus the amount he had spent on staying alive.

"We find ample support in the record that Fortis' conduct was reprehensible ... Fortis demonstrated an indifference to Mitchell's life and a reckless disregard to his health and safety"

and Mitchell was fortunate enough to be young enough to survive long enough to be vindicated. His life expectancy without very expensive treatment would have been 4 years, according to his suit. Older patients often die before they can get their day in court or before the inevitable appeals process winds down. The death panels love it when that happens. I think it happens rather frequently.

Do we need a public option to tame this kind of swashbuckling? Not necessarily, but we need something and we needed it a long time ago. Remember that that ten million isn't going to come out of the executive salaries, the multi-million dollar non-executive board members' salaries or anyplace but the hides of the insured.

A CEPHALOPOD MYTHIC MOMENT

A mighty discussion we had earlier this week on mythy matters posted by our mighty Bloggingdino: Dinos and Darwinists, a worthy read.

In the interest of cultural exchange between species, your intrepid Octopus wishes to introduce you to the cephalopod pantheon. You didn’t believe me, did you! Well, here they are:

The Great and Mighty Igjarjuk:

The Servant and Adversary Triton:

Now, for some holy words from the Cephalopod Scriptures:

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Escargot.

Millions, billions, trillions. . .

I'm pretty new to Twitter, but the place sounds like an aviary today with all the giggling about Sean Hannity's statement that Acorn, the subject of much hilarity this week, is slated to receive eight and a half TRILLION dollars from the government. I'm not sure that Sean is aware that the Census bureau dropped ACORN a week ago as Fox reported. Even so - $8,500,000,000,000.00? Sean, thousands, millions billions trillions -- there's a difference!

So I'm wondering if maybe the next time I call him Insanity Hannity y'all won't say I'm over the top? I mean, I'm just sayin'.

It's about policy

About one out of three New Jersy "conservatives" seem to think that Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, says TPM. About half of those think he has the number 666 on his scalp. To me, the idea that that many people can assert that the concept itself is rational is shocking enough, but of course, as Michael Steele assures us, it's certainly not a racial thing. That the same third believes he wasn't born in the US couldn't be other than a valid suspicion independent of his complexion either. Oh no, it's not about his color, it's about his policies and one certainly notices a lot of policy discussion amongst the pistol packing, Kalashnikov carrying crowd carrying signs calling for the murder of his children. It was about his policies quite a bit before anyone know what those policies might be.

"I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American"

said former President Jimmy Carter yesterday. That's a massive understatement in my opinion.

"When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds,"

Indeed they were out of bounds some time ago and the early defensiveness of his attackers about "the race card" long before accusations of racism began to emerge suggests an awareness. At this point, I don't think any doubt remains as I don't think there has been such an irrational series of accusations and threats of violence since the Salem witch trials. Posters of Obama as an African warlord or as a Nazi in "teaparty" posters reek of racism.

It's inevitable that someone will comment that there are deranged Democrats and racist Democrats and stupid Democrats, fallacious defense though it might be. I'd like to ask just how many people showed up in protest of Bush's illegal actions carrying weapons and carrying signs demanding the death of the president, his wife and "stupid children."

Here come the Judge!

Orly Taitz - the name seems designed for mockery, but anyone so inclined hardly needs such a prop. Yes, she's the one who is still filing lawsuits, using our clogged-up courts as a soapbox to give the voices in her head an audience: the voices that say Barack Obama was born In Kenya on a variety of dates both before and after it became a Republic and is ineligible to be president. So far it hasn't been working out well. That may change.

She's been serving as council for US Army Captain Connie Rhodes who volunteered for service in Afghanistan so he and Taitz could file suit for the right to refuse the orders he requested to be given. Other than the fake birth certificate Judge Clay Land of the US District Court in Columbus, Georgia says is inadmissible since she paid to have it made up (the fact that it's dated incorrectly and got the name of the country wrong doesn't help its credibility) she has presented nothing but a series of diatribes and no evidence whatever that could refute the State of Hawaii's certification that Obama was born in Honolulu.

It's not good to try fooling the judge. Clay threw it, and her apparently, out of court saying she:

“has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as president of the United States. Instead, she uses her complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the president is ‘an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, an unqualified impostor."

WTVM-TV in Columbus reported, that the judge also stated that Orly Taitz,

“will be subject to counsel sanctions for bringing any future actions in his court which are similarly frivolous.”

Think you can slow down a wingnut that easy? Sorry, the Taitz has inflicted another suit in the US district court in Santa Ana, CA using another, differently dated, bogus certificate she also claims to have obtained by bribery in Kenya and other servicemen who claim they won't go because Obama isn't really president.

Will Judge David O. Carter give her case the same heave ho? Don't be too sure. Judge Carter, a former U.S. Marine, repeated several times that this case is very serious and must be resolved quickly so that the troops know their Commander in Chief is eligible to hold that position and issue lawful orders to our military "in this time of war." He's already refused the Obama team's request for dismissal. The plan, according to Jeff Schwilk, founder, San Diego Minutemen who somehow seems to have a voice in this, is to force Obama to reveal his true birth certificate - right, the one he revealed a long time ago and which was attested to by the governor of Hawaii and their director of vital records.

"Taitz did a great job, winning some huge victories today, she was fearless!”

said Schwilk, to the SonoranNews.com I'm sure she was. A sane person would have been terrified.

Am I mocking the innocent here? I'll leave it to you, but we can be sure that we will be hearing from people who condemn this disrespect for fraudulent, seditious cases and believe every word of these charges. Oh, those Liberals! All they have is mockery!

Rush's tale

A Tale of Two Cities, The Miller's Tale, a tale told by an idiot - it doesn't matter in the great game of Pin the Tale on Obama. Any tale will do. Your host today is Rush Limbaugh and he's here to tell us that a tale of someone getting beat up on a school bus can be pinned on US President Barak Obama. What? You want a reason? Well two black kids beat up on a white kid for some undetermined reason and because nature abhors a reason vacuum, the bell rings and we pin the tale on Obama!

That means of course that this incident, because there doesn't seem to be evidence of it being race-related, instantly goes on to round two where it becomes the model for the future Where Barak Obama individually directs the actions of all high school students ( remember the speech?)

"In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering,"

said Rush yesterday. In other words, the fact of a biracial president guarantees that the "darkies" will no longer frolic gaily about the plantation as God and the GOP intends and as Rush proves, have already formed an American Mau Mau movement to invade the inner sanctum of the white race, rape our women and drive the streets of Palm Beach in Escalades with that terrible racist music blaring while Rush is trying to sleep.

That's right - the white kids get beat up - all of them and all of the black kids will cheer and because this has never, ever happened before when the White House was really white, it's Obama's fault, QED.

Tune in tomorrow when Rush will explain to us that all the mockery he gets from those miserable liberals proves that everything he says is correct.

SAYING GOODBYE TO SWAYZE

Patrick Swayze died today at the age of 57 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Swayze always seemed like a stand up guy. He was married to his wife, Lisa Niemi for 34 years and by all accounts they were devoted to each other. Not only handsome and talented he was a passionate conservationist, spending time in Africa to draw attention to the devastation there caused by men’s greed and disregard for nature.

Patrick Swayze will probably be best remembered for the oft repeated line from the movie, Dirty Dancing, “nobody puts Baby in the corner.” Or the tear jerker pottery scene from Ghost, “I love you.” “Ditto.”

But I was more impressed with his performances in the movies, Next of Kin and Roadhouse with Sam Elliot where we were introduced to the musical genius of Jeff Healy, a blind blues and jazz guitarist who also died of cancer at the age of 41.

Swayze’s last gig was the dark drama on A & E, The Beast, but due to his declining health, it had to be cancelled. He maintained a positive outlook throughout his illness, but was ever cognizant that the odds were not with him.

"One thing I'm not gonna do is chase staying alive...You spend so much time chasing staying alive, you won't live."

"Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet Prince.And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." -Horatio

Dinos and Darwinists

Dinosaurs and Darwinists

Capt. Fogg’s post about that Charlie Darwin movie’s travails leads me to offer a post of my own as an extended comment. Yes, I saw the article – the depths of ignorance on this issue are so profound as to invite comparisons to the Kantian sublime. One hears again and again from the fundamentalist crazies that eee-volushun is “only a theory.” Which statement of course proves they have no idea what the word “theory” means in a properly scientific context. They seem to think it means something like “a wild guess,” whereas by the time something sciency gets itself labelled a theory, it’s already been used to make medicines or send rocket ships to the moon. The details may be subject to revision, but in the main the theory will hold true.

What to make of the fact that despite this battle’s having been waged and won decisively by the supporters of science about a century and a half ago in Great Britain, we still see such poll numbers in our own country? Well, for one thing, they invalidate any notion of “progress” whatsoever – if in fact the notion still needed invalidating, which it really doesn’t thanks to a number of cataclysmic human events during the last century. But more interesting is that the continuing refusal to deal with the cosmic “facts of life” may stem from the inflection in uneducated minds of a struggle over one of the great human questions: how to live, or, more particularly, how to abide in this life with some purpose and at least guarded optimism. The question itself is entirely legitimate even if we reject any notions of the inner purposiveness of the cosmos, but its inflection in the minds of the ignorant is most unfortunate and has led to a decades-long pogrom against reason, science, and even sanity.

I put the matter this way because I am not sympathetic to today’s worshipers of reason and all things merely human: they reduce great questions to triviality, and miss altogether the moral eloquence and even beauty with which certain texts in Scripture address human suffering and aspirations. We have met with them before, along with our hopelessly misguided and sometimes vicious religious fanatics – the latter, I think, assisted by a fair number of tortured souls who don’t really believe in talking snakes and six-day ex nihilo creation extravaganzas but whose need to believe leads them to assert (with all the bitterness and ferocity of bad faith) the absolute and literal truth of statements they know, deep down, can’t be literally true. Comparatively few people, I suggest, are now capable of what Alfred Tennyson called the “simple faith” of their agrarian forebears, men and women who lived before the full development of modernity. Refusal to deal with the basic fact of evolution stems from an abnegation of the religious spirit as it has been articulated by intelligent people for many centuries now: was it not the devoutly Protestant John Milton who wrote, “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue” and who railed at those who would impose censorship upon the free discussion of ideas? And doesn’t the Catholic Church now profess that it’s by no means impious to accept the scientific evidence in favor of evolution?

To rely solely upon the compulsory ignorance of others as one’s best defense against anything that might threaten faith is to dishonor oneself and one’s religion. If one wants to claim that a God has imbued humanity with some measure, however limited, of the divine intelligence and integrity, the willful stupidity that would ban a science textbook or a film dealing with evolution degrades that claim beyond recognition. Augustine and Aquinas tell us we can know God best by that which he is not – and one of the things we had better hope God is not is bloody stupid.

Mock around the clock

Obama is a man of parts, more parts than I can keep track of and the number of parts grows every day - every hour if you inhabit the Republican loonysphere or have friends that love to put you on wingnut mailing lists.

He's a terrorist, a pied piper leading our children to Maoism and Sharia Law, a guy who murdered his grandmother and wants to murder yours. He was born in Indonesia and Kenya and went to a terrorist indoctrination school.

He's listed in the Book of Revelation by name as the Anti-Christ.

He's a Marxist and he's a Nazi who nonetheless wants to disband or weaken the army to the point where the communists take over - or maybe the "Muslins" as a sign waver tells us. He's a child molester who parties with homosexual child molesters on the White House lawn. He hates white people. He wants to remake the country in the mold of "European Socialism." He wants to confiscate your guns and declare martial law and send Republicans off to "camps." He murdered and raped a young girl in 1990. He hates "white culture." He's a man in the mold of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and perhaps Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

He wants to ban all religious broadcasting in the US. He hates Christians, he was raised by a racist Christian minister. He had Chrysler dealerships owned by Republicans closed. The "Obama Tribe" was behind the recent political unrest in Kenya. He plans to bring his Kenyan family here illegally. He wants to give illegal aliens free medical care at taxpayer expense. He wants to make Capitalism illegal. He refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He supports infanticide for unwanted newborns.

He lies. He lies about everything. He's gay too, but this only a taste of the vast shit salad being offered up at the loonyville diner. I'm sure you can find more if you try, but if you do, don't tell me. With all this mindless, immoral mockery, I'm starting to think that maybe the guy really is the Messiah.

Censorship in America

Anyone still clinging to the excuse that religion is a source, or the source of morality should examine the foetid depths of moral emptiness to which religious authorities will descend in defense of something demonstrably false and viciously idiotic. Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish informs us that:

"A celebrated new movie about one the world's greatest scientists cannot find a distributor in the US."

Although Darwinism thoroughly proves the idea that complexity and organization do arise and evolve over time as a result of mindless algorithms, most Americans, with the help and censorship of the Christian establishment, not only are totally ignorant of the evidence, ignorant of the principle, but are unaware of just how much Darwin's dangerous idea has revolutionized such diverse things as the development of the digital computer and epidemiology.

The Christian establishment has of course tried to satanize everything from the telescope to the ratio Pi to the barometer over the centuries and of course has punished science and scientists heavily, but such things now go on mostly in the United States. Contrary to George W. Bush's assertions, the jury is not out on Evolution any more than it's out on the Pythagorean Theorem, the Speed of Light or the age of the universe. But far worse than the pathological denials of fact are the immoral, dishonest and dangerous attacks on Darwinian science as a source of extremism. A "Christian" website thatpre -judges movies for the believers has launched into an attack on Creation so viciously dishonest that it has succeeded in censoring it so that cannot be shown in the US.

It's easy for someone with little education and a superstitious mind to buy the slander that the philosophy of science founded by Charles Darwin leads to eugenics and that Darwin himself was

"a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering."

But of course we're not told how little the real Darwinism has to do with the "survival of the fittest" interpretation cooked up by others. One might as well blame Louis Pasteur for biological warfare. One might as well blame Nietzsche's hatred of anti-Semitism for Hitler. One might as well blame Jesus for the Crusades, the Inquisition and the dangerous lies of the American religious right. That less than 40% of Americans "believe" in evolution shows the cultivated and stultifying ignorance that lubricates our downward slide, that produces the enthusiastic gullibility that produces sign waving mobs and demented political displays.

Of course the Christian jihad against science and scientific method and scientific epistemology is part of a larger Church led war against Democracy. The concept of heresy, the freedom of opinion, is a grave offense but the backbone of autocracy and the greatest impediment to Democracy in history has been religious orthodoxy. So far they've kept that movie out of our country and our survival depends on their failure to maintain our ignorance.

THE BUSH ECONOMIC LEGACY

(Double-click on the image to enlarge for readability)

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

- Shelley -

The U.S. Census Bureau just released this report on income, poverty, and access to health care. The report is a damning indictment of the Bush/Cheney years. Not just one Bush presidency, but the unholy trinity of the father, the son, and the ghost of Reagan … a veritable one-two-three-punch right in the economic gut of Middle America. On every major measurement, the report shows the country losing ground: Median household income declined, poverty increased, and the number of Americans without health insurance skyrocketing.

Compare the economic performance of the Bush years with those of Bill Clinton: The condition of the country improved on all indices during the Clinton years, often considerably. In fact, the Bush economic record wipes out 20 years of economic progress. Indeed, I look upon these mighty Bush works and find myself in deep, deep despair.

UPDATE: This article by Dylan Ratigan, Americans Have Been Taken Hostage, deserves a mention within the context of this post:

The American people have been taken hostage to a broken system. It is a system that remains in place to this day. A system where bank lobbyists have been spending in record numbers to make sure it stays that way.

A system that corrupts the most basic principles of competition and fair play, principles upon which this country was built.

It is a system that so far has forced the taxpayer to provide the banks with the use of $14 trillion from the Federal Reserve, much of the $7 trillion outstanding at the US Treasury and $2.3 trillion at the FDIC.

A system partially built by the very people who currently advise our President, run our Treasury Department and are charged with its reform.

And most stunningly -- it is a system that no one in our government has yet made any effort to fundamentally change.

Like health care, this is a referendum on our government's ability to function on behalf of the American people. Ask yourself how long you are willing to be held hostage? How long will you let our elected officials be the agents of those whose business it is to exploit our government and the American people at any cost?

SECOND UPDATE: James' Muse has a lively discussion on supply-side economics here.

Bye Bye Norma Rae

You remember Norma Rae, although her name was Crystal Lee. Sally Field played the Union Organizer from Burlington North Carolina in 1979 and won an academy award for the performance. Ms. Field who presumably is financially secure, is still with us but Crystal Lee, who wasn't, isn't. She got brain cancer she couldn't afford to treat, she had to battle her insurance company to live up to its contractual obligation, they stalled and she died Last Friday.

Sarah Palin is right, Death Panels are real and the Health Insurance companies all have them, practicing 'delay and deny' tactics that resulted -- intentionally -- in the death of the 68 year old Crystal Lee Sutton. Her insurance company interfered between her and her doctor, she couldn't afford Chemo on her own and some employee likely got a bonus for saving the company money.

Like Most Republican arguments, the Death Panel idea illustrates the principle of projective accusation. if your president was guilty of more lies than any other in history, you start accusing the opposition of lying and if you're lucky you can find a mote in his eye and gleefully use it to deny the giant sequoia in your own. Thus to protect the insurance companies that profit by interfering in the doctor-patient relationship, dictate and deny treatment and let people die unnecessarily they accuse a system designed to stop it of doing the same thing. Americans are stupid enough to buy it.

Death Panels are real and death panels are inevitable because corporations are beholden to their stockholders, not to their insured clients. Actual panels of actual people get salaries and bonuses for obfuscating and delaying claims until it's too late, or for scouring your life for some unreported case of acne or the flu to justify denying your cancer claim. A large part of your premiums go, in fact, to pay for these Death Panels and to keep the stockholders happy.

Perhaps someone will chime in here and deny it. I hope so because I'm dying to say You Lie! I can't wait to tell the inevitable troll who will insist that just like Public Schools, Public Libraries, National parks and the National Guard, Government claims administration is Socialism! You lie!

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Mention ACORN to a Republican and watch him start to hiss and twitch. Some are still telling me that because a few ACORN workers registered fake names like Micky Mouse, the will of the majority was overturned and Obama managed to sneak in the door. Of course Micky never actually showed up at the polls -- for obvious reasons -- and Obama won by 10 million votes, but reality never has stood in the way of any Republican belief system. They're still out in the streets with signs shrieking about Obama and corruption and ACORN. They have to, since the Marxism thing, the Birth certificate thing: the death panels, the death book and the other accusations have succeeded at best at looking like the ad hoc plot of an Ed Wood movie.

The silly symphony probably won't drop the theme now that the Government has decided not to use that organization to collect census data in the interest of avoiding the appearance of impropriety. They'll take it as an admission that the Pod people from planet Zorchtron did indeed rig the election, but maybe it will weaken the inevitable claim that the government is using the census to round up Republicans to feed them to brain eating zombies in a secret cave underneath Philadelphia. Maybe not. The chances of someone leaving a comment arguing that there are insane Democrats, that I've rewritten the popular vote margins (like all lefties do) or that any mention of the unprecedented, gun toting madness out in the streets is all part of plan 9 from outer space to smear the sacred name of George W. Bush.

Wait for it.