The Horror

By Capt. Fogg

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow-

________________

I had pretty much made up my mind that I wasn't going to grant Sarah Palin any more free publicity or waste any more stress-filled time reacting to the Idiot's Princess, but like the safety valve on a boiler, I have my set limit. Pop goes the weasel, or at least the blogger.

I read her garbled soliloquy yesterday, about how the immigrants who built this country up from an agrarian economy to an economic giant had a terribly hard time gaining entrance and getting citizenship and could not favorably be compared to those today who were raised in the USA from infancy, got an education and became part of our society only to be expelled on some error in their parent's papers. She's right, you can't. It took a matter of hours to go through Immigration in the Ellis Island days and if you weren't Chinese, you were all right. No English required, no guaranteed job, no nothin' -- and they came by the millions. Today it takes years, of course, but we're dealing with Sarah Palin, congenitally stupid product of a fourth tier higher educational system and a lifetime of reading nothing. She's dumber than a pre-schooler and she's a Republican front-runner.

My mother read me that Longfellow poem when I was little more than an infant and I don't think any of my contemporaries did not know by early grade school of that somewhat mythological event, but no, not Sarah Palin who seems to think that the famed Boston silversmith was a spokesman for the NRA and a right wing, saber rattling blowhard whose main concern was promoting gun rights in the American wilderness.

“…he who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and, um, makin’ sure as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free. And we were gonna be armed.” You betcha, gol durn it!

The fact that this perky little peanut brain couldn't graduate 5th grade much less pass a citizenship test -- or even apparently, read a newspaper, isn't just obvious, it's horrifying and what these daily enormities we're subjected to say about her is still less horrifying than what this says about America.

Abused Nation Syndrome: The Abuse of Politics and the Politics of Abuse

Alice Miller (1923–2010), the preeminent and influential Swiss psychologist, devoted her life to spreading this message: The roots of violence are known. No child, she says, is ever born violent. Violence is driven by nurture, not nature. Violence exists because most children on this planet are raised in violence … often beaten, humiliated, and broken in the first years of their lives.

Consider the options available to a battered child. If a child runs away, who will provide food and shelter? Self-defense is no option because fending off an overpowering adult is more likely to result in further mistreatment. How can a child resolve the contradictory experiences of adult as caregiver versus adult as tormenter? A child may try to be perfect, but perfection never works.

In most corners of the world, child abuse is sanctioned - even held in high regard as long as it is defined as child rearing. Thus, abusive practices are allowed to originate, flourish, and pass from generation to generation often under the cover of righteous piety and administered with this injunction: This is for your own good.

The normal emotional release for anxiety, pain, and resentment is forbidden to battered children, who will suppress their feelings, repress all memory of trauma, even put their abusers on pedestals and idealize them. The life of an abused child turned adult may take many paths. Some may turn their repressed rage against themselves in the form of addictions, anxiety disorders, and depression, even suicide. Others may turn their suppressed rage against their own children ... or against society as criminal offenders.

The issues raised by Alice Miller have social and historical implications. Sometimes abused and traumatized children reenact their childhoods on the political stage and turn themselves into tyrants or become the adherents, adulators, and henchman of tyrants and lunatic ideologues. Systemic child abuse is the wellspring of injustice, ignorance, and evil in the world.

If we write a history of tyrants through the ages - along with their adherents, adulators, and henchman - what should we write about them? Shall we focus on recorded events, on the mass murder of their victims, and their legacy as villains of history? Or might we gain more insight in studying the abuse and violence that shaped their lives?

Joseph Stalin. From historical accounts, Stalin’s father, Vissarion, was a cobbler whose alcoholism led to business failures, domestic violence, and frequent relocations that left his family in poverty and deprivation. A family acquaintance recalls: “Those undeserved and fearful beatings made the boy as hard and heartless as the father.” Thus, the brutal and ruthless dictator remained faithful to his father’s example.

Adolph Hitler. Numerous biographies recall the Führer’s obsession with doubts over his family lineage - the illegitimate birth of his father, Alois Schicklgruber, and the true identity of his paternal grandfather. The presumptive fathers of Alois were two brothers, Johann Hüttler or Johann Georg Hielder. A third possibility was a Jewish family from Graz who employed the maternal grandmother during her pregnancy and paid her support money for 14 years. For Alois, the stigma of being born illegitimate, and part Jewish in a time of rising anti-Semitism, was a source of intolerable shame. Alois projected his self-loathing upon his sons, especially Adolph, in the form of daily beatings that once left the boy unconscious and near death at 11 years old.  Later, Adolph Hitler would write:

I want the young to be violent, domineering, undismayed, cruel (…) They must be able to bear pain. There must be nothing weak or gentle about them.

More to the point, Hitler avenged his father’s shame upon the political stage … culminating in the Final Solution.

In the biographies of dictators, there is a consistent thread of early abuse in the lives of Ceausescu, Franco, Mao Zedong, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein, as examples.  Furthermore, brutal tyrants have an uncanny ability to mobilize the suppressed rage of followers, presumably abused as children, who become their adherents, adulators, and henchman.

It should come as no surprise that brutal tyrants and serial killers share common traits. Neurologist Jonathan Pincus interviewed violent criminals on Death Row to study the long-term consequences of severe childhood mistreatment. His findings:

• Every perpetrator had been exposed to extreme physical and emotional abuse by at least one parent or caregiver;
• Each homicide reflected the same kind of brutality that the murderer had endured in childhood;
• Those who experienced extreme cruelty as children directed their anger at others as a form of retaliation;
• None of the convicts incriminated their abusers, even when consciously aware of the abuse;
• The pathologies of convicted murders were similar to the pathologies of their abusers;
• The biography of each and every convict represents a feedback loop of terror directed back at society.

The research of Jonathan Pincus shows that aggressive impulses accumulated in childhood play a role in causing developmental brain damage, usually as a consequence of long-term brutal mistreatment.

Is it possible for a nation, a society, and a culture to follow a similar path?  When demagogues and hacks strut their hypocrisy, hysteria and lies upon a national stage, why shouldn’t we regard these as analogous to abuse?  When citizens brandish guns, or imply Second Amendment remedies as an alternative to civil discourse, why shouldn’t we assume their purpose to bully, stifle debate, and suppress the rights of others? Does the impulse to win by any means and win at all cost remind you of the tactics of tyrants? Are these the signs and symptoms of Abused Nation Syndrome?

Assassinations, Arson, and Bomb Attacks,

Slaughter in a Unitarian Church,

Three Police Officers Killed in Precinct Attack,

Holocaust Museum Guard Shot and Killed,

Hispanic Family Murdered by White Supremacists,

If Ballots Don't Work, Bullets Will,

Don't Retreat, Reload.
(chilling - have a listen.)

Tucson Shooting Rampage - An Act of Political Terrorism

Lethal Bomb at MLK Parade in Spokane

An Interactive Map of Terrorism Since 2008

Is this the kind of society in which we want to raise our children - and the legacy we want to leave for future generations?

Open for comments …

ARIZONA CRIME STATS BACK SHERIFF DUPNIK’S CLAIM: “A MECCA FOR PREJUDICE AND BIGOTRY”

Original Research: RockyNC

Commentary: Octopus

Last year, RockyNC of the Swash Zone posted this article, Arizona Draconia, arguing in part that anti-immigration hysteria in Arizona is NOT supported by Arizona's crime statistics:

RockyNC - "With these numbers in mind, what DID prompt the Draconian measures enacted by the Arizona governor and legislature? The argument that they had to "do something" about illegals in order to fight crime sure doesn't stand up in light of Arizon's own numbers.

In aftermath of the Tucson massacre that claimed 6 lives and injured 13 others, it is revealing to revisit Rocky’s findings, especially within the context of Sheriff Dupnik’s remarks:

Sheriff Dupnik - "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

In response to Sheriff Dupnik, here is what Senator Jon Kyl said:

Senator Jon Kyl - “First, I didn't really think that that had any part in a law enforcement briefing last night. It was speculation. I don't think we should rush to speculate.”

And here is what right-wing radio host Jon Justice, of KQTH FM 104.1 in Arizona, said … calling on Sheriff Dupnik to resign:

Jon Justice - “It was a complete misuse of his power and he owes the media in town, TV and radio, an apology for his horrible comments in the middle of such a tragic day. He should step down immediately from his position as Pima County Sheriff.”

Lets look at the facts.

Overall crime rates in Arizona are down by roughly 12%; whereas bias and hate crimes are up by substantial margins. According to Arizona’s Total Crime Index, the composite crime rate dropped from 289,554 in 2008 to 255,133 in 2009, a decline of 12%.  In contrast, bias and hate crimes increased from 168 incidents in 2007 to 226 in 2009. Please note: These data show a reversal in bias crime trends. In previous years, bias and hate crimes had declined from 207 incidents in 2005 to 168 in 2007 … until anti-immigration hysteria kicked in and pushed the numbers up.

The good sheriff is right. Arizona has turned itself into Ground Zero for prejudice and bigotry, and there is nothing Senator Kyl, any baghead, or Sarah Palin can say to ‘refudiate’ the data.

In the abattoir, there is an old saying about the utility of pig slaughter:  Use everything but the squeal, they say. Tell me, Messrs Kyl and Justice and Mizz Palin …

How do you put lipstick on a squeal?

A Quickie with Sarah

Sarah Palin is just the gift that keeps on giving, isn't she? You kind of wish that she'd just go away, but even then, you have that little spot of sadness in your heart that Christine O'Donnell isn't still around to make fun of (don't be sad; we've still got Michelle Bachmann). As the Rude Pundit put it,

Look, sure, yeah, of course, of course, we should be able to fucking ignore Sarah Palin and her molesting P.E. teacher-looking husband ("I'm puttin' my hand on the floor under your chest to make sure you do your push-ups right, Cindy") and her Hills-Have-Eyes-esque brood of mutant children. But she ain't a Jurassic Park T-Rex. If you stand still, she ain't going away. And if she's gonna hate fuck the "lamestream" media constantly, we may as well get off on it, too.

We all know what's gonna happen: she's gonna believe the Wal-Mart shoppers and shut-ins and horny rednecks who tell her at her book signings to run for President. And she'll run and be an idiot on the issues and a cunt to everyone around her, and then she'll blame everyone else for ruining her chances when, in reality, in a rare moment of clarity, Republicans will vote for the another bugfuck insane candidate, the one who didn't say on her own reality show that she got millions of dollars to do that she thinks it sucks that people invade her privacy and that she's just regular people, like you and you over there, who must have a TV studio in your home so you can tell Sean Hannity what regular people think.

But let's ignore all this furor over the fact that Sarah still doesn't know the difference between North and South Korea, and think about this.



If you can't stomach the whole thing, go to the 1:15 spot and listen to her talk about "the extreme politicians over on the left who want to buy into those extreme environmentalists who claim that there's no way you can responsibly develop a plot of land that was set aside for oil and gas development."

OK, Sarah, I understand that you've called it "An-Wahr" for so long that maybe you think that's the name of the place. But you're taking a reporter there right now. Maybe you should know something about it.

Let's highlight one brief cut there. When she's talking about "a plot of land that was set aside for oil and gas development," she's referring to ANWR.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

You just can't make this shit up.

PalinWatch: Baked Alaska

Somebody's got to do it, distasteful as it may be -- and what's she up to now? Same old thing. Presented with the facts, she said "thanks, but no thanks."

We all remember when the song was that Obama was the most liberal legislator - ever and it's fun to remember it and more fun to listen to people try to reconcile that idiocy with the likelihood that he will imitate Bush in giving the 1% who own it all another tax break like the one instrumental in causing the First Great Depression and the more recent Bush Depression Recession. Obama is as liberal as Corporate America allows him to be, and that's to the right of Reagan.

But wait, there's more. Sarah's now slinging the one where Obama is the most pro-abortion president to occupy the White House and slinging it with the same, soggy, snickering spite and scorn for reality. "Obamacare" of course will fund abortions, said she yesterday at a half-full old Texas Vaudeville house, even though it won't, any more than there are death panels trying to kill your grandmother or that the President's trade mission to the far east is using up half the Navy and will cost billions. Behold the power of rumor over a willing audience.

But bullshit in motion tends to stay in motion despite any friction caused by the truth and maybe it's that strange "dark energy" but these days it seems actually to expand at an increasing rate.

"People do not process information in a neutral way. Their preconceptions affect their reactions. Biased assimilation refers to the fact that people assimilate new information in a biased fashion; those who have accepted false rumors do not easily give up their beliefs, especially when they have a strong emotional commitment to those beliefs. It can be exceedingly hard to dislodge what people think, even by presenting them with the facts."

Cass Sunstein, "On Rumors"

Exceedingly hard? Understated humor is so refreshing these days.

Teabaggers everywhere

So, as we approach November, everybody's watching the biggest clowns - the Nazi fanboy in Ohio, the militia supporter in Alaska who has reporters beaten for asking questions, and (certainly my favorite) the Delaware Trainwreck herself, the performance-art-made-flesh, Christine O'Donnell (I mean, can you beat a 40-year-old unmarried woman who's vocally, violently opposed to masturbation? She's either a liar, or more twisted than a Catholic priest in a room full of altar boys).

As time goes on, the Teabaggers are gradually proving themselves to be both blatantly racist and the last true descendants of John Birch. (I mean, come on! This is the public face of the Tea Party - what is it that they aren't willing to say in public?) But what midgets are hiding behind the massive sacks of crap in the front?

Well, for that, we should probably turn to that unfettered fount of fecal matter, Sarah Palin. So what lesser-known candidates does she like?

Sean Bielat for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District

It's hard to tell much about Bielat. He stays pretty well under the radar. He has been smart enough to release a viral video about Barney Frank, but that's about it.

Of course, Barney Frank is every Republican's worst nightmare. He's an effective, sarcastic, openly-gay Democrat - he gives them nightmares. They'd pretty much back Satan Himself against Frank, if they thought He had a chance of winning. ("Of course He's a good church-going person! Just ask his minister, the Reverend LeVey!")

(Are you supposed to capitalize the pronouns referring to Satan? I'm not even clear where you'd go to look that up, but I suspect you don't...)

Butch Otter for Governor of Idaho

Wow. So the man's first elected position was two terms with the Idaho House of Representatives. Then he was on the Idaho Republican Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Canyon County Republican Party. He served four terms as Lieutenant Governor, three terms in Congress, and he's been governor of Idaho since 2007. I thought the Tea Party was opposed to career politicians?

You know, as a convicted drunk driver himself, he's awfully hard on aides who get caught for the same offense. But it's obvious why Sarah likes him: he gets off on killing wolves too.

Stephen Fincher for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District

An interesting choice for Ms. Palin. He takes potentially illegal campaign loans, but considering Palin's history with campaign funds (and, you know, $150,000 wardrobes that are still unaccounted for), that one would be easy for her to overlook. Fincher has refused to comment. On any issue.

But then, Sarah supports that idea, too. Because it was when she actually spoke to people that she got in trouble. Better to avoid speaking entirely...

Randy Hultgren for Illinois’ 14th Congressional District

Randy is another cipher. He talks a great game, but...

See, here's the thing. He's running against Bill Foster. An acknowledged science wonk, known for being a true centrist, more interested in the people and the result than in sheer partisan bickering. To most people, you'd think this would be a good thing. But to Sarah Palin, he's the Black Hole of Evil.

A true centrist is the last thing she wants. Someone who pays attention to the realities of a situation, and not the political implications? She can't have that! We must have strict partisan divides!

This is pretty much what Sarah does. She supports ciphers who've said they support any kind of stupid right-wing crap, as long as it gets them elected. But Sarah doesn't always go with that "due diligence" thing. You know, like in an earlier list, where Sarah plugged a "great" West Virginian candidate, John Raese.

She supported Raese for a while now (you know, despite the fact that even his wife won't be voting for him), although... well, OK, she was giving her support to him for a race where he wasn't running. She thought he was from Pennsylvania, as it shows in this Twitter post that she has since scrubbed from her website.But it's an understandable mistake. After all, for Raese's West Virginia political ad, he went to Philadelphia, and put out a casting call for "coal miner/trucker" types with "a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look."

(Apparently, those types of people are thin on the ground in West Virginia.)

The Unholy Trinity: Beck, O'Donnell, and Palin

A fellow blogger who goes by the handle of Capt. Fogg inspired what began as a comment on his post, Masters of Mendacity, but grew into a post of my own. The Captain's post adroitly dissects the fallacies at the heart of the ongoing proclamations by Palin, O'Donnell, and Beck that feed the clamor from the Tea Party of, "We want our country back." The basic reasoning appears to follow the lines of, "America is a Christian nation, founded by God or at the very least endorsed by God and it (America) must be saved from liberals." One of Palin's latest proclamations is that  that the Constitution tells us that our "Unalienable rights" come from God. Christine O'Donnell has declared that the Constitution isn't merely a legal document but a covenant based on divine principles. Glenn Beck appears to have anointed the Constitution to be his Gospel, and himself as the Second Coming.

They aren't just liars, they are flat out wrong. There is no mention of God or unalienable rights in the Constitution; perhaps Palin, et.al. have confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. That document states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

What fascinates me about the language regarding unalienable rights is that Jefferson's concerns weren't about worshipping a particular God but about declaring that there were rights inherent to being human that could not be usurped and that the purpose of government was to protect those rights as opposed to curtailing them or taking them away. I think that his use of the term Creator reflected the broader concept that such rights were natural rights, innate rights that were not given but existed without being conferred or bestowed by any government.
Beck, Palin etc. have chosen to harp on this language as proof that this is a Christian nation. Based on the varied writings of Jefferson, Madison and others, I'm of the opinon that the furtherest thing from their intent was founding a Christian nation. I think that a modern debate on this matter fails to understand the worldview of the founders. These men were readers of Locke, Rousseau,Hobbes, and Aristotle. They struggled with the philosophical concepts of who are we and what is our purpose, not some fight over whose God was better. They actually thought about the purpose of government and concluded that it was to serve the people and that the power of the government came from the consent given by the governed.

It was a revolutionary idea, Certainly the English Monarchy didn't recognize its power as coming from the people but viewed its power as God given and superior to the will of the people. The Declaration took that philosophy on with its bold proclamation about unalienable rights endowed by the Creator. It was an assertion against the then ruling idea that the government decided which rights to grant the people and which ones to deny them. It wasn't a proclamation supporting Christianity but a declaration against tyranny.

As for attributing such language to the Constitution, it just raffirms my belief that most of the people shouting about the Constitution as being a covenant based on divine principles have never read the document with even a modicum of comprehension. The Constitution is a secular document that establishes the practices and laws governing the operation of the government. The Preamble states the purpose of the Constitution clearly and succinctly: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (There are many sites on the Net with info on the Preamble and the rest of the Constitution. I cited to Wikipedia here because it was the best of about a dozen sites that I checked. Up to date, and fully documented.)

Citing the United States Constitution as a religious text makes about as much sense as declaring that my telephone book contains the secrets of the universe.

KOCHROACHES

A scrapbook by Octopus

A hat tip to Elizabeth for bringing this article to our attention: COVERT OPERATIONS, about the secretive Koch brothers who are the money behind numerous far right wing causes. Highly recommended reading.

Sarah Palin: No Laughing Matter

Of the Obama administration, she says, “They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ’em, and I do tell ’em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah—we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.” The crowd’s ample applause at these lines swells to something vastly bigger when Palin vows defiantly that “come November, we’re taking our country back!”

The above lines are from an article by author Michael Joseph Gross for Vanity Fair. Gross followed Sarah Palin "...through through four midwestern states, speaking with whomever I could induce to talk under whatever conditions of anonymity they imposed—political strategists, longtime Palin friends and political associates, hotel staff, shopkeepers and hairstylists, and high-school friends of the Palin children. There’s a long and detailed version of what they had to say, but there’s also a short and simple one: anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath."


I just read Gross' article. It's long, but well worth taking the time to peruse.

A lot of us, myself included, have been guilty of dismissing Sarah Palin. We laugh at her gaffes, marvel at the way that she mangles the English language, and deride her for her lack of knowledge on most topics of substance. But here's the deal, Sarah Palin is a very dangerous woman and if we are to neutralize her, the first thing that we have to do is take her seriously.

While we're making fun of Palin, she's methodically increasing her base, travelling through middle America, trash talking the Obama administration, and regularly invoking the name of Jesus. Her base doesn't think that she's stupid; they think that she's one of them, and when you insult her, you insult them.

I'm guilty of it, as are most progressives. The provincial and narrow view of the world expressed by Palin's followers offends me and I express my distaste by asserting that they are devoid of intellectual curiosity, which is just another way for stating that they're stupid. Once you tell people that they're dumb, they just aren't interested in hearing anything else that you have to say.

However, Palin has successfully tapped into the psyche of a lot of Americans, people who identify with her because they buy her assertions that she is one of them. She makes them feel that their view of the world is valid, that their prejudices and narrow belief systems are superior to those of the heathen liberals. Early on she recognized that Obama represents everything that they fear and dislike. When he speaks, they don't always easily follow what he is talking about so they presume that he's speaking some anti-American, anti-Christian code. Palin feeds their fire; she's their leader.

Perhaps Palin's most clever move is the focus on generating the tent revival atmosphere demonstrated at Beck's Restoring Honor rally. Palin has two texts that she regularly cites at her appearances, the Constitution of the United States and the Christian Bible, sometimes interchangeably. Her audiences eat the mishmash of secular law and religious belief as if it were the mythical manna from heaven, secure in their desire to get their country back and the belief that God wants them to have it.

I don't believe Christianity is inherently evil but I do believe that humankind has repeatedly demonstrated our ability to twist the precepts of any belief system to justify the worst aspects of our nature. Misdirected religious fervor soon swells into fanaticism, and history is littered with the horrors perpetrated in the name of religious fanaticism. These people believe that they're on a mission from God and that Palin is their angel of light guiding them to salvation, not just for themselves, but for the entire country. If they have to trample on the Constitution, run undocumented immigrants out of the country by any means necessary, and kill off the liberals in order to enact their vision and get their country back, then so be it.

The saving grace of this country has been that most people who consider themselves to be Christians have never been overly involved in organized proselytizing. There have always been exceptions, but not any significant numbers involved in forcing the word of God on all, just a few souls wandering through neighborhoods and knocking on doors on occasion. However, the Palin/Beck base are a different and dangerous breed, and they have found their prophets in Palin and her acolyte, Glenn Beck.

They are fueled by their fear and discontent; Palin and Beck provide them with answers that fit their view that they have been wronged and that their entire way of life is danger of being destroyed. Every time they hear someone speaking Spanish they fear that the conversation is about them. They deeply resent being unable to understand the conversation, after all, this is their country. So they angrily question, "Why can't these people learn English?" They also provide the answer, "They don't want to learn English!"

The black man in the oval office further confuses and upsets them. He must be up to something nefarious; he can't really be working for the good of all Americans. At the core of the obsession with so-called reverse racism is a subconscious belief that black people must have some desire for retribution. That belief fuels the vitriolic dislike expressed for President Obama and the obsessive beliefs that he is on the side of the terrorists, has plans to destroy the United States, and plans to chuck the Constitution and replace it with a socialist manifesto.

I vehemently disliked most of the policies of the George W. Bush's administration but I can't recall there ever being an assessment by progressives that GWB was intentionally and with malice aforethought attempting to destroy the country. Certainly, there have been accusations that certain actions on the part of past presidents would result in the destruction of the foundational beliefs of this country but never the assertion that the president in question ran for office for the express purpose of destroying America.

At the top of the progressive agenda must be plans to reframe our message to re-engage liberals and progressives prior to the November 2010 elections and to begin to lay the foundation for the 2012 elections. I'm not confident that there is any framing that will sway those who are enraptured of Palin and Beck, and I fear that the Palin/Beck base will continue to grow.

There is a great deal of apathy among progressives and liberals; declarations that Obama has betrayed us abound. Like a petulant child who didn't get everything on his or her Christmas list, far too many of us focus on what remains undone and look past all that has been accomplished. We threaten not to vote in order to teach the Democrats not to take us for granted.

It's time that we start taking Sarah Palin seriously; her base certainly does. If we don't, there may lessons learned in November 2010 and 2012 but we may the ones who are schooled.

Hey Glenn Beck, You Crack Me Up!

A month ago when I read that Glenn Beck planned to host his Restoring Honor rally on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic I Have a Dream Speech, I was so ticked off that I could spit nails. Next I heard that the ubiquitous Sarah Palin was scheduled to speak at the rally and my left eye started to twitch uncontrollably. When I learned that Dr. King's niece, Alveda King, also planned to speak at Beck's rally, I feared that my Aunt Dorothy's prophesy was about to be fulfilled and my head was going to explode.


However, there was no spit and no nails, the twitch is nearly gone, and my head is still intact. I temporarily forgot the basic rule for surviving encounters with the madness of those who attempt to rewrite history and reshape truth--never forget to laugh.

Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Dr. King's hapless niece as modern day purveyors of the dream is just laughable. I was eight-years-old when King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial; his speech moved a nation. I know for a fact that Glenn Beck is no Martin Luther King, Jr. He's not even a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Beck is a pompous twit whose hour has come round at last, much like the beast slouching so ominously towards Bethlehem in The Second Coming. History is filled with charismatic charlatans who give winning performances before clueless audiences.

And the audiences...they fervently worship their idols, and the more those of us who see that the emperor has no clothes try to share that revelation, the more firmly entrenched they become in defending their idols from those of us who would dethrone them. Attacking Beck and Palin only elevates them in the eyes of their followers. The rest of us are the enemy.

Look at the language that they use; it's as if we are at war. "Take back our country;" "Restoring Honor;" "I want my country back;" "Defend our Constitution."

So rather than spitting nails, or developing a permanent tic, or having my head explode, I'm going to engage in a bout of laughter at Palin, Beck, and Alveda King trying to assert that Dr. King would have been at their side on August 28. I'm going to recognize that Beckolytes will not be swayed no matter how many times the rest of us try to tell them that their demi-god has feet of clay. When I'm done laughing, I'm going to renew my efforts to work on my local get-out-the-vote campaign. The way I figure it, the only sensible course of action is for those of us who have not drunk the kool-aid to take back our country.

Beck and Palin focus on one line from King's I Have A Dream Speech, the part about being judged by the content of our character not the color of our skin. It's certainly a part of what was said that day, but Dr. King never made pretty speeches solely about pie in the sky dreams; he always grounded his dream in a call for action. The following is also from that speech:

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

The Devil and the Oil Spill

Fox and Palin.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?

Yes, we have people out in the street screaming about tax increases that never were and while Federal income taxes are lower than they've been in 50 years. We have Fox giving air time to the airhead who has taken time out from chanting "drill baby drill" like an over-aged cheerleader for the oil cartel to chastise President Obama for not doing what he in fact is doing and for not knowing how to do what it was BP's responsibility to know how to do and to be able to do. I wonder if she took time to take a shower and change clothes before switching from 'hands off the oil industry' to 'we need government intervention and oversight.'

"Well then what the federal government should have done was accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans that have had the solutions that they wanted presented."

Well, of course that's what the administration is doing. Looking for assistance from countries where drilling is subject to much more oversight and where Fox ranteth not. Perhaps it's time to ask that "gotcha" question once again. So what newspapers and magazines do you read Mrs. Palin? Oh, I see -- you watch Fox.

Of course there was a 4 week delay in waiving the federal Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which mandates that all goods shipped between U.S. ports be transported in U.S.-built, U.S. owned and U.S. manned ships.Of course there was a long delay during which BP didn't tell us how bad it was and that they couldn't have it stopped in short order, but face it, the Grand Old Bastards have so much fun and profit with their daily game of pin the tail on the President, they're even criticizing the pants he wears when talking about the oil spill, unlike the Commander guy with his costumes.

Does it really matter whether the president has apparently made sure that we won't have to pay for this disaster by having BP set aside 20 billion in escrow? No, even that is proof of perfidy, since it will somehow hurt the Louisiana economy and it basically is a socialist plan to redistribute wealth says the irrepressible Bachmann. Win or lose, we lose, if you ask the New Right.

But it appears that God wants no part of this sound and fury and we're going to have to fix it ourselves. If only we only had to battle the Devil and the oil spill here and not the legions of lying idiots.

The more we lie, the truer it gets

What happened never happened and the election that ousted the Republicans from office all around the country had nothing to do with public sentiment and even if it did, that sentiment did not include a desire for sweeping reform of health care in America. Or so says Sarah Palin, trying to emulate the rest of the Republican flim-flam artists and voodoo historians like Karl Rove and the dynamic Cheney Family Circus. True to American form, being the worst of them at this game, she may have the most followers.

Please ask yourself: who will be left behind? And who will decide – what kind of panel will decide – who receives the health care that government will obviously have to ration?

Yes, although every reputable source including this one insists that there is nothing in any way suggestive of rationing or "death Panels" as she used to call it, in the House or Senate health care reform bills, she goes on as though there obviously are and as though nobody ever asked for reform in the first place and as though all we ever needed is protection for doctors against malpractice suits.

Palin reveals in her Facebook page, which after all is a fine place to self-publish things no reputable source will touch, that yes, America is wildly against reform and the "Democrat" cabal is forcing it all into one orifice or another against our collective will -- and of course there are death panels and rationing and all kinds of other evil things lurking in that huge document she hasn't got round to reading yet. It takes so long to sound out all those words, you know.

idiocracy

My newest creation is a video about the return of paranoid politics in our time, set to the tune of a defunct metal band called idiot. The CD it's all a lie was pressed before the movie Idiocracy was a glimmer in the eye.

Hopey Changey

Can you believe there's a website called teleprompterpresident.com? The local trailer parks echo with teleprompter jokes, there are more teleprompter jokes clogging up blog comments than there are clumps of fat in Rush Limbaugh's arteries and that chattering little chipmunk Palin just can't let go of that chewy chestnut. I wonder was Abe Lincoln only a charismatic guy with some scrap paper? Yes, he was to be sure, but not only and the Small Government Conservatives slandered and murdered him anyway.

But of course the mini-skirt Moose Mom doesn't know, and doesn't care that you might know that the first time the electric note cards were used was at the 1952 Republican Convention by former President Herbert Hoover. It was the first one ever televised of course and he did it again in 1956. Whether he was charismatic or not I will leave to you and to Sarah Snickers, but Eisenhower used one from 1952 and virtually every other president, candidate and TV talking head pundit has used one too at various levels of charisma.

That's right, George W. Bush used a Teleprompter, there he is in the picture, although I'm told "that's different" by the snarksters and flim-flam bloggers and if you remember the TV Debates, Bush even wore some kind of device worn on his back. So it's hard to know what Governor Barbie had in mind, but it's clear she doesn't feel threatened by anyone who knows more than she does -- which is most of us -- because like most irresponsible pseudo-conservative snarko-terrorists, she's always surrounded by the like-mindless who think she's a genius.

Maybe if George had used one more often or had been able to read along with the moving words, he wouldn't have given us such delights as "the childrens is learning" but we'd be so much poorer without such things as part of our culture, or whatever remains of one.

So, yes The president is a charismatic man, which of course is required for political success in the age of Television, but that's a bit like saying he's a man who wears shoes. Compared to the most educated of recent Republican candidates he's a bit more than Charismatic and of course note cards or not , when he speaks he says something -- and in respectable English as well.

But when one really can't be described as anything more than political junk food, and that's the kindest thing I can say about Sarah Palin the human Twinkie; when you're a tasteless confection of sugar, oil and starch with no ability to do anyone any good, the best you can do is just what she does. Well never mind about the hope and change -- you're hopeless and intransigent. You abandoned Alaska leaving them with record debt and some incoherent story, but it was all about a better offer, wasn't it? So isn't that all you are -- a mendacious mediocrity and charismatic candidate for What Not To Wear -- with notes scribbled on your palm?

So hows that wiggly giggly thing working out for ya, Sarah?

Sarah Palin is a lying sack of shit

Why pull any punches? Ms. Hopey - Changey may have the IQ of a Barbie doll, but is just bright enough to know, if she bothered to think at all, that she's lying like the devil about her portrayal of the year old Obama presidency and the letter and spirit of constitutional law.

Why fool around, why worry about any one's "sensitivities?" She's a damned malicious liar and it's made no more palatable by her giggling, faux-adolescent presentation. Addressing the Tea Party Rebellion Saturday, she insisted that the administration has unconstitutionally given the right to a fair trial to a "terrorist" because apparently the presumption of innocence doesn't apply to any one of a group Sarah selects. The supreme court disagrees with Palin however, and with the Bush administration and I'll bet some of them have actually read the damned thing.

In 2008, the court ruled that you can't arbitrarily deprive anyone of a trial, dispense with the presumption of innocence and remove Habeas Corpus by crying War over and over and of course Sarah, in denial of the truth accused the president of "politicizing" the Christmas attempt by not crying war nearly enough -- which by the logic of stupidity means not politicizing an act is politicizing it. Don't worry, if that doesn't make sense you're probably not stupid.

Prattling on in full lying sack of shit mode, that "Paliney" thing on the podium continued to prevaricate by criticizing the treatment of Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who according to her wasn't properly questioned because he "lawyered up" and wasn't cooperating. The facts are quite dramatically otherwise of course. Umar has been gushing facts and giving up names like an open faucet and without any unlawful means of interrogation, but worse than being a damned liar, Sarah Palin is actively engaged in undermining the foundations of American justice by promoting the idea that justice can be waived by using the magic word "war" and that a fair trial gets in the way of justice.

How, in the name of God is there anyone left anywhere who doesn't see the horns and cloven hooves and smell the sulphur? What's to prevent someone from characterizing her assault on truth, justice and due process, her campaign against the government and against the Constitution as a war? What's to prevent her or us from torture, rendition, secret and indefinite imprisonment if some ambitious president declares he an enemy combatant?

Even Fox is showing signs that they're becoming frightened by the monster they've produced and should we be any less fearful of the beast?

Gagging the Fox

A friend at the Field Museum in Chicago once attributed the phrase "rotten enough to gag a maggot" to a staff taxidermist presented with a reeking and putrefying elephant hide. I can't confirm or deny it, but it's a useful concept and it came to mind when Fox News Host Brian Kilmeade dared this morning to say that Sarah Palin had gone beyond the snark limit in dismissing President Obama as a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter." Of course saying that while reading from notes written on her palm and bellowing to a snarling crowd seemingly taken right out of some medieval painting of Jesus in torment might just be expected to make even a Foxman gag at her unrestrained roguery. Was his stomach already upset at her dishonest hypocrisy evident in damning Rahm Emanuel and Excusing Rush Limbaugh for using the word "retard" as a noun?

Kilmeade evoked the Fox of the previous administration in saying

"The only thing I was uncomfortable with [was] when she said it is bigger than any guy with charisma and a teleprompter. That guy is still president. I think you got to -- you got to -- you're no longer the candidate. He's not the guy you're running against. I think you got to give that title its due even if you don't respect the policies."

Indeed, although the Fox of today isn't noted for recognizing the similarity or often the identity of Bush Vs. Obama policies, the Fox of the previous administration was fond of criticizing Bush's critics for questioning his wars, questioning his unconstitutional acts and policies, or the state of the economy or anything else for that matter. Remember when the FOX theme of the day was that the economy was robust and "Liberals" were only pretending otherwise? Well we won't get an apology for that one, but it seems at least one Foxer remembers the idea of respecting the President at some basic level, remembers their taunts that disrespecting the president was "hating America."

Can it be that Palin has become an embarrassment to Fox as well as to the human race or is this just the view of one talking head whose gag reflex has been triggered? It will be interesting to watch this develop.

Rogue Vogue

Was the huge vogue for Going Rogue helped along by having SarahPAC purchase thousands of copies of the best seller? Campaign contributors' money and funds from right-wing publications were used to produce and promote the book by giving out free copies while she got royalty checks.

"Irregardless" as a Sarah fan might say, it did help her legally transmute PAC money into a royalty check and since she walked off the job and isn't running for another position of public trust, the conversion apparently wasn't illegal. For those of us still interested in why she quit the Governorship, perhaps the ability to pocket all that PAC cash and avoid going to jail for it might help us to understand.

Perhaps some will remember that before she donned the robes of roguery, it wasn't a particularly nice way to describe anyone. Certainly not as nice or as honorable as Maverick, the title she was forced to relinquish after threats from the descendants of the eponymous cattleman, but who can doubt that the robes fit?

Meanwhile, back at that rogues' paradise called Facebook, Sarah has been channeling the wolves she used to strafe from various aircraft and attempting to sink her teeth into the Obama administration by going after Rahm Emanuel for using the word "retarded" in an internal strategy session -- as though it had been directed at Down's syndrome children and the Special Olympics and not at the stupidity of a co-worker. No, Sarah, retarded is not like the "N word" and although you'd love it to be, and although Mr. Emanuel has already been put in the position of having to apologize to the Special Olympics organization, you haven't said much about the "witches" you've praised your beloved pastor for persecuting. There are no Witches, only innocent people who don't share your religion -- there are people whose cognitive skills fall behind the norm no matter what euphemism you prefer. There are people who are stupid and there are people who are inexcusably and viciously retarding the progress of our country toward Liberty and Justice for all.

Tweet Tweet

In the winter, Florida sees countless twittering things with small brains, perching on power lines and trees, circling overhead and grazing my lawn looking for lizards and bugs. Of course, even a hundred years ago there were so many they would darken the sky, but we've hunted some to extinction, rendered many species endangered by draining the everglades to grow sugar and by poisoning the waters with pesticides, fertilizers, oil and heavy metals. All over the world, nature as we once knew it is in retreat, from the rain forests of the Amazon to the melting tundra and retreating glaciers. Even the birds know it and we all know who's to blame. It's not the birds.

Well, not all of us. Sarah Palin insults the intelligence of most twittering things by claiming that man can't influence or change "nature's ways" and is arrogant to think so. Yes, that's OK, speechlessness is a normal reaction to such idiocy. What can you call it but idiocy and what can you call it but arrogance to assert that the magical powers of God will steadily restore the countless square miles of ocean bottom scraped bare by drag nets, restore the countless miles of coral bleached by growing acidity and reanimate the countless species disappearing at an accelerating rate? And what is arrogance, after all, but making grand statements about nature without any knowledge whatever having to do with atmospheric and oceanographic sciences, geology, physics, chemistry or in fact, any damned thing but talking in tongues and burning witches?

"arrogant&naive2say man overpwers nature" tweets the idiot Palin.

The painful irony of course, is not that man is part of nature and man is changing the world in many, many obvious and quantifiable ways. It's not just that we've disassembled the building blocks of matter, decoded the blueprints for life, unravelled the history of the universe -- the irony is that it may be arrogant to say that we can ever overpower stupidity, cupidity, stone age superstition and the crackpot politics that eats away at America like a cancer.

THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE ACCORDING TO KRUGMAN, HANSEN, AND PALIN

Credit: AZRAINMAN

Years ago, I served on the board of directors of a conservation group whose mission and purpose was to preserve an endangered species. We spent considerable time debating, discussing, and revising our bylaws and even more time reporting, debating, and balancing our balance sheets, plus the obligatory inventory of office supplies and cute plush toy souvenirs. “Merchandising with a message,” they called it. There were monthly board meetings and monthly membership meetings followed by refreshments, but how much time was actually spent preserving and protecting our charges? Ahem, not that much.

Years pass, and my transformation from human being to cephalopod is now complete. I no longer converse with human protectors but with the protected, and here is what the protected think of their benefactors: “We are doomed, DOOMED!” From the viewpoint of an endangered species, human beings are all talk and cute plush toys but no action. In the human Universe, the shortest distance between two points is through every conceivable viewpoint.

My experience in the endangered species preservation biz reminds me of the latest argument between economist Paul Krugman and climate change scientist James Hansen, who fired the first volley in this New York Times Op-Ed:

Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate.

(…)

Coal emissions are still significant contributing factors in four of the five leading causes of mortality in the United States — and mercury, arsenic and various coal pollutants also cause birth defects, asthma and other ailments.

(…)

The House and Senate energy bills would only assure continued coal use, making it implausible that carbon dioxide emissions would decline sharply.

(…)

If that isn’t bad enough, Wall Street is poised to make billions of dollars in the “trade” part of cap-and-trade.

Not to be outdone on matters of energy economics by a lowly climate change scientist, Paul Krugman, our infamous defender of faith and turf, returned fire with this:

Things like this often happen when economists deal with physical scientists; the hard-science guys tend to assume that we’re witch doctors with nothing to tell them, so they can’t be bothered to listen at all to what the economists have to say, and the result is that they end up reinventing old errors in the belief that they’re deep insights.

What a condescending and prickly reply, I thought. Clearly, Paul Krugman represents the Cute Plush Toy School of environmental protection that amuses protectors but accomplishes little on behalf of the protected. Worse still, here is what Krugman says of Hansen’s carbon tax proposal:

If you use a tax, you know what the price of emissions will be, but you don’t know the quantity of emissions; if you use a cap, you know the quantity but not the price. Yes, this means that if some people do more than expected to reduce emissions, they’ll just free up permits for others — which worries Hansen.

What worries Hansen should also worry us. A system of cap and trade will invite chicanery from players on both sides of the equation. Polluting industries will abuse the “cap” on emissions by continually lobbying Congress for exemptions, offsets, and opt-outs. Speculators will abuse the “trade” by gaming the system in much the same way Enron manipulated energy markets and defrauded consumers. Thus, cap and trade will become the ultimate plush toy for powerful interests but accomplish little or nothing in actual emissions reduction. Furthermore, Krugman ignores Hansen’s proposal of a fee-and-dividend system which clearly states:

The fee would be uniform, a certain number of dollars per ton of carbon dioxide in the fuel. The public would not directly pay any fee, but the price of goods would rise in proportion to how much carbon-emitting fuel is used in their production. All of the collected fees would then be distributed to the public. Prudent people would use their dividend wisely, adjusting their lifestyle, choice of vehicle and so on. Those who do better than average in choosing less-polluting goods would receive more in the dividend than they pay in added costs.

(…)

Given the amount of oil, gas and coal used in the United States in 2007, that carbon fee would yield about $600 billion per year. The resulting dividend for each adult American would be as much as $3,000 per year. As the fee rose, tipping points would be reached at which various carbon-free energies and carbon-saving technologies would become cheaper than fossil fuels plus their fees. As time goes on, fossil fuel use would collapse.

While I favor Hansen’s fee-and-dividend system, we should also consider a proposal put forth by arch-conservationist extraordinaire, Sarah Palin. In her recently released bestseller, the Sarahdon said: "If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?" We should take her at her word. If God made meat to be eaten, and if human beings are also made of meat, then it stands to reason that human beings should join her list of fair game. Her modest proposal would require only a slight modification of God’s Word. If you change “Love thy neighbor” to “Eat thy neighbor,” famine would disappear and all human impacts on the environment would diminish over time. As everyone knows, once you remove human impacts from the environment, Nature has an uncanny way of recovering and bouncing back ... quicker than a wink!

Dreams of Magnum's Ferrari

Sarah Palin famously went through five universities before getting her degree. The diva was on the MRS program, but her sojourn in Hawaii was brief because, her father says, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her...uncomfortable: "They were a minority type thing and it wasn't glamorous, so she came home."

Minority type thing, not glamorous? She's allowed her taste in men, but how did she expect to find a First Dude type amongst all those Hawaiians? Had popular culture convinced her the place was full of good, clean white folks?

I mean, sure, there are minorities in the TV Hawaii of her youth; but they're all second bananas. I think Sarah was dreaming of Magnum's Ferrari.