The Pendulum Swings

I am currently teaching a course grounded in feminist critical theory. My students – both male and female – have been very responsive to the material we are studying. I look forward to going to class. These young people 25 years younger than me are willingly embracing the curriculum of the course – better than I had expected. The response of my male students has been particularly heartening. Across generational and gender lines we are learning from each other about gender in our world today – and with a sense of humor and grace. They have made a grumpy second-wave feminist such as myself feel positive about the future with respect to all things related to gender.

Then I learned this week of an outrage perpetuated by a politically influential, radical right wing woman of my little corner of the country against the cause of women in our mutual corner of said country and I came crashing right back down with a loud thud to earth from the starry-eyed universe of hope that I’d allowed myself to believe in these past few weeks.

It’s been sobering. When I visit this blog or watch Rachel Maddow I learn of the utter idiocy of the increasingly powerful radical right in this country. Up ‘til now it’s only been hovering on the fringes of my personal world like a hazy fog. Now it has entered it like a thundercloud hurling lightning bolts. Now it’s personal. This is no longer a lunatic fringe but a lunatic presence.

Don’t ask for details – I can not give them. But suffice it to say – I am a down at heart Squid. I am pushing 50. I have been fighting this crap for so long. I get so tired of it. And maybe I’m just losing perspective – but I genuinely fear that sexism and misogyny are getting worse. That it is getting more shrill. Just as racism has lately been reasserting itself without shame – so has sexism and misogyny – perpetrated – oh so sadly – not only by men but also by women. This woman has the power to alter the paths of some of my students - that's not an exaggeration. How dare she. Yes – SHE!

There's nothing sadder than feeling dragged into battle by one of your own.

HAPPY LABOR DAY BANANA REPUBLIC DAY

It was not my intention to wish everyone a happy holiday because there is little to celebrate. Traditionally, Labor Day marks the end of summer and is supposed to honor … well ... labor. These days, the facts speak otherwise.

Unemployment has reached 9.7%, a 26 year high. Worker pay has fallen 11 percent since 1973, although worker productivity has risen 78 percent in the same period.

In 1973, corporate CEOs made 45 times more than the average worker. By 1991, CEOs made 140 times more, and by last year, CEO income rose to 400 times more.

CEOs take home a larger slice of the American pie. Executive pay rose from 4.8 percent of company income (1993-1995) to 10.3 percent (2001-2003) … more than double in less than a decade.

Corporate interests and their shills clamor for lower taxes and more perks - chauffeured cars, jets, company apartments, club memberships, fancy trips, sports tickets, and financial planning experts. Meanwhile, labor gets downsized and outsourced. Workers watch their home values and retirement accounts vanish, and their wages and benefits cut.

So what is there to celebrate? Maybe we should just rename Labor Day and call it by its real name: National Banana Republic Day.

MarXrays from planet Obama

My doctor was running a bit late yesterday morning and I spent about a half hour sitting in the waiting room staring at the wall. About 10 minutes before my name was called, a tall, gaunt man in his late 70's lowered his newspaper and said to his wife in the loud way those hard of hearing do: "this is just wrong." His wife seemed to slump down in her chair and mumbled something about Obama only urging kids to work hard and stay in school. "Sixth graders aren't the ones dropping out" he replied "and asking them to help him - that's just wrong."

Of course nothing is "just wrong" it's what you say when you don't have a reason you wish to think about, much less discuss. Of course nobody faulted Bush for reading to kids, and I don't remember any such idiocy about keeping kids from listening to the President since radio broadcasting began in the 1920's, but the idea that president Obama should avoid talking about civics or anything else with school children is based on unsavory premises that need to be hidden -- and so "it's just wrong."

It's amazing how the idea that Obama not only would be "indoctrinating" anyone by making a public speech; much less indoctrinating them in some insidious Marxist plot, is to me one of the most fascinating things about American insanity. It may be the most obviously contrived meme ever to infect us, stemming at first from his questioning of the gospel of tax cuts and privatization and then reflecting the demand by a large majority for the kind of system we have in Medicare already. I don't have space to show how foolish this is and I don't need it -- just read the papers.

If a graduated income tax is Marxist, then as I've said several times, Adam Smith and Teddy Roosevelt were socialists FDR was the anti-Christ and Dwight Eisenhower was Lenin. Still the meme has cascaded down from the RNC through Fox and the ignorant backwoods bastards who hate black people and want to launder their bigotry at Murdoch's laundromat. "Work hard and stay in school?" "Think about ways to improve our nation?" COMMUNISM! FASCISM!

It's not just that miserable old hypocrite in the waiting room, doubtless having his bill payed by "socialist" medicare, it's the ignorant, stupid, miserable bastards of America pushing school boards to let their kids stay home and not be exposed to the communising Obamanite which emits MarXrays causing them to speak French and visit a dentist regularly.

Michelle Malkin is squealing like a stuck pig. World Net Daily is calling for a national "stay home from school day." Glenn Beck is being -- Glenn Beck and the rest of the Republican blogswamp is croaking like bullfrogs after a rainstorm: "Obama wants to create his own Hitler Youth!" School boards all over the country are being besieged by howling rednecks and districts in 6 states so far are refusing to tune in. It's crawling through the nation's school system like a flesh eating virus.

In a way, it's encouraging that after nearly 8 months, giving a speech to America's students is the worst thing they can pin on Obama, but that this pathetic collection of misbegotten miscreants will buy into it as enthusiastically as monster hunting peasants surrounding castle Frankenstein makes me continue to be ashamed at any country with such people in it.

School for Socialism

I agree with Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer. President Obama, by going on TV and telling school children to work hard, stay with it and take personal responsibility for their education is spreading a Socialist ideal. Good republican families should teach their kids to kick back, drop out and stop listening to Socialists.

"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology."

and there's nothing more socialist than getting an education. God (the fundamentalist one) only knows education is the enemy of everything Jim Greer and I stand for: school prayer, using the schools to preach that abortion is murder and that complete anarchy will allow a free market utopia.

the Democrats have no problem going against the majority of American people and usurping the rights of parents by sending Pied Piper Obama into the American classroom.

even when that majority seems to be less than 25% as concerns public health care.

Of course Greer and I part company at this point. He simply doesn't go far enough. Public schools are government run, which means they are much more expensive than private schools and they are supported by unfair graduated property taxes which hurts those who create jobs. They should be closed and the responsibility of brainwashing and restricting information should be left to the parents!

Public schools -- the next thing you know we'll be having public police, fire, EMT and even public government! All these things should be returned to the private sector just like George Washington would have demanded if he'd been psychotic Conservative.

The entire government should be run by a private corporation, the military by private corporations, the police, etc. That way it would cost less, the invisible hand of morality for profit would keep them all honest and we would all live happily ever after in the miraculous prosperity of the Worker's Paradise while the State withers away.

amen.

A CIVICS LESSON

Friday night lights, the cheers and roar of the crowds attending high school football games is perhaps no more cherished and well attended than in the South. There is a lot of attention given to high school football with many local TV stations devoting a portion of their programming to bringing us the latest standings and scores.

In my day they were called jocks; the high school gridiron heroes, admired by all, fawned over by cheerleaders. This probably made up much of the lives of the Hollywood Hills football team out of Hollywood, Fl. But some of these young men and their coach found out what it takes to be a different kind of hero.

It was a bad day for the team. While participating in USF Sling-N-Shoot tournament, Alvin Arnold for maybe the first time in his life, dropped a pass thus eliminating the team from the competition. Disappointed and tired, Coach Barnwell began the drive home with Alvin and three of his teammates; Clarence Murphy, Jared Moldonado, and Anthony Yerou.

Southbound on US 27, they saw a man on the northbound side frantically waving at drivers passing him who were pretty much ignoring him. The boys could see a truck overturned in the canal and they asked the coach to turn around and go back.

Coach Barnwell put together a gameplan; stick together, listen to him and go for children first, then any adults. When they arrived on the scene, the SUV was upside down in about four feet of water. The coach jumped in the water in search of the two year old and the boys followed him, literally yanking the doors off the SUV in order to reach the trapped family.

They quickly rescued the baby and the man, who was the child’s grandfather but the grandmother was a little harder. By the time they got her up the embankment, she had no pulse and then Jared Moldonado did an extraordinary thing; he started doing CPR and brought Juanita Bryan back from the brink of death. Unfortunately, she would eventually die from her injuries, but at least it would not be at the bottom of a muddy canal.

"We have great kids and we have great parents," Barnwell said. "These young men showed that the discipline and teamwork and preparation that you learn can be used in any situation in life."

Nowhere in the retelling of this story by the participants did I see the mention of any concern about race, political affiliation or sexual orientation of the victims or the rescuers. Just some human beings coming to the aid of other human beings in peril. There's a lesson here for us all about how real Americans conduct themselves. And it is into the hands of young people such as these that we should desire to entrust our future.

GO SPARTANS!

Blackwater

Barack Obama is not trying to set up government death panels as the idiot Palin has told us, but he sure as hell is continuing to employ Blackwater Death Squads. I believe this to be the most dangerous, if not the most sinister development in American history. Comparisons between the state of our union and the collapsing Roman Empire are a dime a dozen, but when mercenaries begin to outnumber regular military, it becomes a threat and when the mercenaries have an objective which includes an evangelist theocracy, when they openly indulge in orgies, child prostitution, murder, destruction of evidence, illegal arms dealing, money laundering, tax evasion and armed mayhem with impunity while arrogantly refusing to allow congress to examine their books -- the threat demands that overused Roman comparison.

Such use of mercenary troops, immune from Congressional oversight and legal obligation, may or may not be unconstitutional, but it is, in my opinion, unconscionable.

The contract with Blackwater and its subsidiaries was set to expire in May, however the Obama administration has now decided to temporarily extend it through September, according to The Nation. Barack Obama needs to end this danger immediately. If we cannot raise sufficient troops to maintain our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to get out now, because the presence of heavily armed, privately owned military forces loyal to who knows whom in the United States may be the biggest threat to national survival since the Civil War.

EXPOSING THE PUPPET MASTERS BEHIND THE PUPPETS

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!

A beggar on horseback lashes a beggar on foot.

Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!

The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

(W.B. Yeats)

This weekend, your intrepid Octopus stirred up controversy within our ranks. It started with this post by our friend and colleague, Captain Fogg, who invoked this post from our friend and colleague, Lindsay of Majikthise, about the latest Glenn Beckism. As Lindsay states:

“In the clip, Beck claims that Americorps has "just received half a trillion dollars in funding." What the hell is he talking about? […] It's even funnier that Beck's guests played along with the half-trillion claim. Surely they knew it was false. This wasn't just an incidental mistake, it was the hook for Beck's crazy conspiracy theory.”

No argument! Except that Glenn Dreck can spin lies and deceptions until the cows come home. Does this mean we should preoccupy ourselves with confutations every night after sunset? And what of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and the other dissemblers? Do we redouble our efforts and counter every lie from every dissembler in the Milky Way?

No doubt, Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh offend us on many levels. Deceptions offend us. Sneers and jeers offend us. Ridiculing a popular actor with Parkinson’s disease offends us. Accusing 9/11 widows of profiting from their husbands’ deaths offends us. They offend by invoking a deep emotional response within us: They remind us of schoolyard bullies who torment victims for sadistic pleasure. They push the boundaries of uncivil discourse deeper into unchartered cesspools. Outrageous people say outrageous things ... just to grab attention.

Here is my question: Do we allow fools to lead us by the nose when we pay too much attention? Do we aid and abet the viral spread of these messages? Lindsay offers a reasonable albeit expected response (August 29, 2009 at 06:50 PM):

“It's a very tough question. I think it's one of those strategic decisions that can only be evaluated retrospectively … John Kerry initially ignored the Swift Boat Liars. In retrospect, it seems like he should have hit back hard and early ….

In the face of uncertainty, my instinct is to counter the lies because I think that's an inherently worthwhile pursuit. I think it's worth knowing what these people are up to, even if the exposure gives them a little extra notoriety

Captain Fogg agrees:

”I don't think we can say Beck would go away if we ignored him. I think history proves over and over again that hate and bigotry have to be confronted.”

Yet, I can’t help but ask this nagging question: If we pay too much attention to the puppet, do we ignore the puppet masters behind the puppet? Does the court jester divert our attention from the secret usurpers who plot against the throne with stealth and guile?

Here is a little noticed footnote in American history. In 1934, retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified before Congress about a alleged plot to overthrow President Roosevelt. Although no prosecutions followed his testimony, one Gerald McGuire did attempt to recruit Butler to lead a 500,000 man march on Washington that would topple the President. Other alleged conspirators were members of the Liberty League, which slandered FDR as a Communist who surrounded himself with Jews. Members of the Liberty League included the plutocrats of American industry: U.S. Steel, General Motors, General Foods, Standard Oil, Colgate, Heinz Foods, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Names that figured prominently in the conspiracy: J. P. Morgan, Irénée DuPont, the Mellon and Remington families, and Prescott Bush.

Rightwing Republicanism was born in 1934 and their aim was to dismantle the New Deal and restore laissez-faire economics. Today, we are witnessing the same struggle against powerful interests, or as John Hoefle states in The Fascists Versus FDR, Then And Now: “This battle is not, as some would have us believe, a historical artifact, but an ongoing fight between a world which desires to be free, and a parasitic oligarchy [that] wishes to rule over us as if we were cattle.” The oligarchs of the 1930s may be long gone but their heirs and assigns live among us. Who are they?

Maybe we should start with William McGuire of UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s leading health insurer. According to Forbes’ list of highest paid CEOs, his pay of $124.8 million would cover the average health insurance premiums of 34,000 people. Two years earlier, William McGuire received $1.7 Billion in pay and bonuses … roughly the health insurance premiums of 463,000 people. Why should one man be worth 463,000 Les Miserables!

How about the Walton family, perhaps the most influential family in America with a combined net worth of more than $100 billion. They have used their Wal-Mart PAC to avoid paying taxes, block environmental regulations, resist corporate transparency, hinder workers rights, stop port security, thwart tighter regulations on food safety, oppose estate taxes, and kill universal healthcare. They are the quintessential state capitalists whose self-aggrandizing exercise of power leaves us poorer.

In contrast, Glenn Beck is the quintessential shlameil who spins malapropisms and misspelled words from an alcohol-addled brain. When we focus on the village idiot of Pottersville, we ignore Mr. Potter at our peril. If Glenn Beck ever had booze on his breath, William McGuire and the Walton family have blood on their hands.

Thus, your tentacle-entangled Octopus would like to see the progressive blogosphere spend more time investigating the puppet masters and less time head-butting circus clowns.

Update: A nifty YouTube video from our good friend. Matt Osborne.

Argumentum ad lapidem

It's an argument by throwing stones and it's almost all they do these days. Anything can be dismissed by calling it "lefty" "Liberal" or "Socialist" and all the faithful will giggle and smile while swallowing the argument.

Take Andrew Sullivan, for instance: he's "a Lefty sockpuppet" according to Jules Crittenden because by talking about the hiring of wives, daughters and sons of political celebrities, like Jenna Bush and Liz Cheney as journalists or commentators in "snarky" fashion without calling attention to the media frenzy over the late Ted Kennedy is an obviously "lefty" thing.

What's "lefty" about America's obsession with celebrities? Not much, as the Michael Jackson / Princess Diana episodes would suggest and to imply that Ted Kennedy's long and influential career is of interest to the country simply and only because he was the Late President's brother is a bit more "sock-puppety" than Oscar the Grouch's opposition to everything.

Yes, Americans ( and many others) are obsessed with celebrity worship, but Ted Kennedy had a very long, very influential career while Jenna? Let's just say her future as a journalist of merit is still hypothetical and media investment in her has more to do with her father's notoriety than with a distinguished body of essays, commentaries and investigations. It's a very false equivalence Jules and it makes you look desperate. It makes you look like little more than a tube sock with some buttons sewn on and a persona that does nothing more than repeat "lefty, lefty."

It's an easy bit of Schauspiel and easy to produce. Perhaps you can get the letter H or the number 4 to sponsor it.

In the corner

". . . whether or not these techniques are immoral, or how immoral they are, surely depends on whether they worked”

said George F. Will regarding the use of torture. How sad that anyone considers this man "conservative" or in fact listens to him at all. Although he supported a commission to study (obfuscate) the matter on ABC's This Week yesterday, Will seems to consider an extreme utilitarianism a valid moral measure. If it works to reduce crime, why not human sacrifice? Perhaps Will would like to be on the commission to "study" that.

Although the idea that a practical end justifies any means or makes crime legal or worse, is the basis of moral judgment, is frankly horrifying and although such thinking may long have been with us, it hasn't, to my knowledge been so clearly championed. The idea that such things still need to be re-examined is sickening, considering that we used opposition to this kind of Spencerian social Darwinism as a rallying cry in WW II and it's more sickening still that Will can call opposition to it "liberal" and Dick Cheney can call it "far left."

Have even the most articulate supporters of Republican policy run so far out of arguments that they have to resort to these mindless dichotomies? A cornered rat does not think of right and wrong and neither, apparently does a cornered Republican. It's just me against you and anything I do to you is justified.

Summer raving

Those lazy, hazy, crazy conspiracy theories of Summer are still with us and not just in the deep South. Majikthise gives us a clip of Glenn Beck, Fox News' designated madman, discussing the prospect of Americorps being a cover for President Obama's own private army - a kind of American SS if you will. Just the kind of zombie troops he will need to disarm the Armed Retards of Texas and deliver our country into the hands of Sauropods from Saturn. Just like FDR did with the WPA.

Obama has given the job training and public service agency "half a trillion dollars" to turn them into an elite fighting force to use against Americans, presumably after the Pentagon balks and Blackwater opts out. The Pentagon would be jealous of all that funding - if there was a particle of truth in this seditious crock of Glennbeckery.

Now don't get me wrong, I do not reject conspiracy theories out of hand. There certainly were some involved in bringing on Bush's Second War and a number of less violent ones involving raiding the public treasury, but I say that because there is credible evidence for it. There never is for Beck's ravings. In fact the idea seems to be that total absence of evidentiary support is not only proof of conjecture, but a large screen upon which to project the ideas he comes up with by sticking his head in a paper bag full of aromatic hydrocarbons. Never mind the proof of his dishonesty, the folks who have been backed into a corner don't care about evidence. The people who hired him care nothing at all whether their viewers are human or subhuman or anti-human as long as they tune in, turn on and freak out.