HENRY POTTER REPUBLICANS vs. GEORGE BAILEY DEMOCRATS

Once again, the political pendulum has swung. A mental midget has replaced a legislative giant. His knowledge of baseball has qualified him for public office. The politics of ”I’ve-got-mine” matters more than citizenship. A former nude centerfold is the new Republican poster boy. It’s a wonderful life!

Now let us sing ...

The Three Great Alabama Icons

My latest creation:

Me too! I was disgusting too!

The first thing that came to mind when I saw George Bush and Bill Clinton trying to control their mutual loathing while sharing a podium for the President's bi-partisan humanitarian effort, was that Clinton shouldn't be forced to associate with the most embarrassing thing that ever crept into the White House on two legs; the most embarrassing president we have had in our history. He shouldn't be forced to work with a party whose major spokesmen are still giggling about it being a publicity stunt to gain favor with "light skinned and dark skinned" groups and recommending against saving any lives.

I think we should call it the Coulter principle: find some tragedy, some enormity, some egregious horror and turn it inside out.

" Clinton is a 'national embarrassment' and Bush shouldn't be 'forced' to partner with him" hissed the wicked witch on Fox News' Geraldo at Large last Sunday. "To force poor ex-President Bush -- like he hasn't suffered enough -- to be hanging around with Bill Clinton, who's leaving his essence on Kleenex in the White House..."

Sleazy enough for you?

As Raw Story tells us, Coulter seems to feel she missed the sleaze train with the tragedy in Haiti, with Robertson, Beck and Limbaugh scooping her badly while she was off in the bushes shedding her skin.

"Stop asking about Rush's statement. I made some controversial statements this week too,"

she warned Geraldo. I'm quite sure she did -- it's just that the screams of a quarter million maimed and dying people drowned her out.

On the Upcoming Vote in Massachusetts

One storied state among fifty has a big choice to make Tuesday, and it goes beyond an appraisal of the two senatorial candidates' personalities and campaigning skills. From the way it sounds to me outside Massachusetts, the Coakley campaign has for too long taken for granted what should have been fought for as a matter of principle even if losing seemed impossible. After all, voters don't owe anyone their vote. Scott Brown has shown energy and enthusiasm, and he has therefore done a better job, at least, of asking for the votes that might sweep him into office. A successful politician needs to engage with people, not avoid them.

Still, as I see things, there's just too much riding on this vote for Massachusetts to choose Brown. Hasn't he already pledged to oppose the current health-care legislation? Maybe the Democrats will push the bill through with lightning speed if he wins. I don't know, but I'm not optimistic. And what is Brown's stance on how to deal with abuses on Wall Street and at the big banks? Voting Republican will reduce the Democratic Senate supermajority of 60 to 59, and if that happens, it's hard to see how there will be any further movement on the president's agenda throughout 2010. With the 2010 elections and the likely loss of at least a moderate number of Democratic seats in the House and Senate, there's no reason to think much will get done from 2010 through 2012, either. What I see is an opposition party determined to quash anything and everything this president does, no matter what.

Does anybody not already far to the right really believe that voting Republican will improve matters? I don't see the logic in it: "The Dems are having trouble getting things done with sixty votes, so let's take a vital one away from them and see if that helps." It won't help. Coakley will support the president, and if you're a Democrat or a pragmatic Independent, how can you conclude that a move towards re-empowering the false conservatism that has done real harm to America can improve the situation? It's possible to argue one way or the other about Obama's policies, but anyone who thinks he is responsible for our current economic predicament is mistaken. Marring his efforts so early in his term isn't sensible.

One half of one branch of our government – I mean the Senate as half of the legislative branch – has become all but a burial ground of the nation's hopes for a sustainable market economy and much else. They are only able to act for the present time because of that sixty-vote majority; take that away, and, I suspect, all we will have in the Senate is one hundred wealthy, well-dressed people doing nothing for the next several years—even if strong and immediate action is necessary. A once quaint-seeming rule (sixty votes for cloture to facilitate an up-down vote) has become an engine of destruction pointed straight at the republic's well-being and even its viability, whatever the intentions of those who wield that engine may be. What's the use of crippling an administration that is at least trying to make some rational changes? Things can get worse—they almost always can. This may be one of the most important votes the people of Massachusetts have cast in a long time. All politics may be local at base, but sometimes local and statewide politics have huge consequences for us all.

DERRICK ASHONG: THE POWER OF PEACE

If you don’t know who Derrick Ashong is now you probably will soon. Derrick first came to my attention due to his work on The Shift movie. If you haven’t watched the trailer, click HERE and see it now. It is only a few minutes long but it is a powerful , awe-inspiring piece of film like no other you have seen.

Derrick has written an op-ed piece for Oprah.com HERE in honor of Dr Martin Luther King where he speaks about the strife in the world today and he tells us nonviolence is STILL the answer.

A native of Ghana, West Africa, he is also a Harvard graduate and founding member of the musical group, Soulfege. Having lived in an Islamic dominated society and in the West, Derrick offers a unique perspective on the world we live in.

Derrick has dedicated his life to building bridges and brokering for peace, both on the lecture circuit and as a member of Next Generation Leadership Forum.

“It can be difficult at a time when our nation is avowedly "at war" with extremists to put that lesson in perspective. After all, what role does the principle of peace play when some people are willing to blow themselves up to make a political statement?”

“Most people of every culture and creed would prefer to live and thrive rather than see others die. As a person who grew up in both the West and the Islamic world, I can say with comfort that the value and sanctity of human life is indeed a shared belief, despite any punditry to the contrary.”

“The fact is, terrorists do not have the military wherewithal to invade or destroy our nation. But they do have the ability to invade our hearts and minds and to sow seeds of fear and doubt in the fabric of our national consciousness.”

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method that rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“And by striving together toward our greater humanity, we, like our forebears, shall overcome every challenge to it.”

While it is good we honor a great man who started a movement on the premise of peaceful protest and nonviolence that several generations have benefitted from, it is time to move on and hear the new voices of a new generation taking that message to a new level and relating it to the world as it is now. The tide is turning, it is in the air and coming across the airwaves.

Today I posted a quote from Desmond Tutu on my facebook page: “One day we are going to wake up and discover, WE ARE FAMILY.”

To all my family, I wish you peace and love.

Glenn Beck is Satan incarnate

So if Rush Limbaugh is the worst person in the world, what does that make Glenn Beck, whose latest excretion regarding Haiti rides on Limbaugh like a rocket on a big fat booster stage? What did he say, you ask? He said that Obama is dividing the nation by responding too quickly to the apocalypse in Haiti.

I like to think I have a foul-mouth vocabulary second to none, but I'm nearly speechless.

"I also believe this is dividing the nation…to where the nation sees him react so rapidly on Haiti and yet he couldn’t react rapidly on Afghanistan. He couldn’t react rapidly on Ft. Hood. He couldn’t react rapidly on our own airplanes with an underwear bomber…it doesn’t make sense. [...] Three different events and Haiti is the only one. I think personally that it deepens he divide to see him react this rapidly to Haiti."

Yes, the divide is clear: it's Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson on one side and everything good, compassionate or concerned in any way with humanity on the other. This is simply the voice of smug, self-satisfied evil; snickering, whining, mocking evil.

And the Foxes are talking about running him for president. The other side of the "divide" would like to run him out of the country on a rail.

This Just in:

Iowa Representative Steve King has a brilliant idea. Instead of giving Haitian illegals in the US an extra 18 months to stay here rather than recieve what is today a death sentence, King would have us deport them immediately. Presumably that would entail pushing them out of an Airplane, since there's no place to land or walking the plank since the seaport is destroyed. Need I mention that King is a Republican.

Hey God -- are you listening to this shit?

Fox can't count

Either that or they just lie, and lie, and lie. I've lost count of how many grossly misstated or simply invented figures have been given out on Fox News recently. Not that it's a new thing, but someone needs to remind them that there is a substantial difference between 15% and 0.15%

"The big banks are set to pay out a record $145 billion in bonuses for 2009. Some Americans outraged by this. President Obama looking to ease some of that anger, promoting a 15 percent tax on the banks that remained or have remained or have returned to profitability."

No, Foxy Friends, President Obama is not supporting a 15% tax on banks that have already repaid the TARP money; the discussion is about a 0.15 percent fee on the largest and most highly leveraged banks like Citibank, with more than $50 billion in consolidated assets. Here's the actual news.

Here's the Fox News:

"It's being assessed only against the banks that have already paid back with interest the TARP money they got. So essentially they're paying back for the banks, they're paying back for Fannie and Freddie, who are not paying -- paying back for the cars, rather. Not the weak ones still in the red which continue to be a drain on the Treasury, like for example, Citibank."

Sloppy journalism? Egregious lie? It's hard to prove either way, but it happens again and again and somehow the misleading, or fake or distorted "news" always favors the Fox Faithful and damns the Democrats. In either case, that Fox is a genuine news organization is not in doubt -- they're not. Rarely will a Fox only viewer ever hear a retraction or correction or apology and only sometimes will they hear the truth. You can count on that.

Let them die - not one more dollar!

I've lived in declared disaster areas several times and have been involved in emergency communications and food distribution during three category 2 hurricanes in the last 5 years alone and of course, the destruction of property, the loss of power for months is no fun, but to compare any of that with what's going on in Haiti right at this moment shows the inadequacy of the word disaster. In Haiti, the lives of almost all have been a disaster all along and they are a living hell for the lucky survivors.

The first I heard about the earthquake in Haiti was a communication from the ARRL, which represents Amateur Radio in the US, asking us to keep certain emergency frequencies open and to listen for any communications coming out of Haiti. I heard nothing myself, although the Caribbean is at my doorstep. There was nothing but background noise on 14,300 Mhz -- the Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net (IATN) until the Rev John Henault, HH6JH, made contact late Wednesday morning. He said that he was safe, but had no power and no phone service. He was operating on battery power and hoping to get a generator running later in the day so he could report on conditions.

It's been reported that the UN peacekeeping force headquarters building has collapsed and may have killed everyone inside including the UN envoy. About 150 U.N. staff members remain unaccounted for and 22 are confirmed dead.

It may be a while before any final death toll can be determined. In a country of such massive poverty people will continue to succumb to disease, starvation and dehydration, but it will, no doubt be a very large number. France has airplanes on the way and the US has arrived and secured the airport so that emergency aid can land safely. President Obama has pledged $100 million in relief and has assured what remains of the Haitian people that they will not be forgotten. The Red Cross is actively soliciting funds with telethons and operators are standing by as you read this.

Rush Limbaugh wasted no time weighing in on the suffering of millions, on the slow, sordid, lonely deaths of countless children, on the agony of those crushed by fallen buildings:

"This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, "credibility" with the black community--in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there."

Yes, Rush is a heavyweight in more than one way. Limbaugh, who lives in barely imaginable luxury simply doesn't want another damned thing done for those ungrateful "light-skinned and dark-skinned" people, dying of thirst, hunger and disease. As to private donations to the Red Cross? Forget it!

"we've already donated to Haiti--it's called the U.S. income tax."

Of course Rush cares about some people, particularly when he can use their deaths to defame anything he defines as liberal: things other people call decency or charity, or humanity, or compassion. We're supposed to be outraged in perpetuity at the death of any American citizen at the hands of Muslims - White citizens preferred of course, but Rush doesn't give a damn or a dollar for anyone else.

Remember that the next time you listen to him, the next time you think it's so cute how he lampoons his shoddy straw men. Remember the next time you patronize his sponsors. This is the man who looks into the eyes of a bereaved mother, a dying child and says "screw you and screw anyone who gives a damn."

THE NINCOMPOOPERY OF TELEVANGELIST, PAT ROBERTSON

He's at it again. Just like his asinine remarks after 9/11 where he agreed with the charlatan "minister" Jerry Falwell when he said 9/11 was caused by feminists and gays, Robertson has pronounced on his scam "700 Club" show that the Haitian earthquake is the result of the Haitians having made a "pact with the devil" two centuries ago.

Here is the report:

Pat Robertson said Wednesday that earthquake-ravaged Haiti has been "cursed" by a "pact to the devil."


"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal.


Robertson said that "ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other"

This miserable Gantryite piles on the poor Haitian people by suggesting that God is punishing them for something that happened centuries ago?

While all people of compassion and good will, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, are trying to help the injured, the sick, and the dying, this jackass used his position as a "Christian" spokesman to blame the afflicted for this catastrophe.

Pat Robertson is a fool and beyond contempt and is no more a "Christian" than is the devil he stupidly believes in.

Pathologizing Dissent, or Deja Vu All Over Again

Hendrik Hertzberg, from The New Yorker magazine, whose political commentary I usually enjoy and agree with, has just added himself to the growing and not-so-illustrious line of those who mock and dismiss critics of our so-called health care reform bill, in his piece aptly titled -- because of its unintentional self-mockery -- Um, Pathetic.

To his credit, Hertzberg, somewhat reluctantly, admits that the bill has “conspicuous flaws,” but he breezily absolves our lawmakers of their responsibility for them, maintaining, rather unconvincingly, that our Congress is an inanimate entity, impervious to human feelings, thoughts, or intentions.

A curious observation, that, especially in light of the various astounding concessions our supposedly unfeeling and unthinking Senators (OK, there may be some truth to it) were able to intentionally finagle for their votes. For example, the sweet and jaw-dropping Medicaid deal for Nebraska secured by just one (allegedly unfeeling and unthinking) individual Senator, Ben Nelson. Or a mind-boggling provision giving Medicare benefits to all citizens of one town in Montana, obtained by Senator Baucus. (This begs an obvious question: if it can be done for all citizens of one whole town, why not for all citizens of our country?)

For an inanimate, unfeeling entity, the Senate members have shown remarkable, life-like nimbleness and skills in securing favorable concessions on their own behalf (because, let’s face it, they were negotiated with an eye on their upcoming elections).

Furthermore, Hertzberg does something even more unsavory in his attempt to excuse the Senate and President Obama from bearing responsibility for the "conspicuous flaws" of this bill: he joins the chorus of those who pathologize dissenting critics, even though his attempts at this untoward exercise are somewhat less heavy-handed than those done by the White House.

But Hertzberg too ridicules people like Howard Dean (whom the White House called “insane,” “irrational” and “uninformed”), Arianna Huffington, Keith Olbermann, Ralph Nader, and others. Not that he gives any space in his column to discussing the merits of their criticisms – he dismisses them off hand, attributing to the critics' thinking a “pathetic fallacy:" that of considering our Congress to be populated by living and breathing human beings.

Hertzberg says,

The pathetic fallacy is a category mistake. It’s the false attribution of human feelings, thoughts, or intentions to inanimate objects, or to living entities that cannot possibly have such feelings, thoughts, or intentions—cruel seas, dancing leaves, hot air that “wants” to rise.

Ah, yes, cruel seas and dancing leaves. Just like our Congress.

To think of it, accusing one of cultivating a “pathetic fallacy” is only a tiny bit less offensive, if at all, than calling one “insane” (as it was done to Howard Dean). But the overall message is the same: the critics of the insurance reform must be, well - what’s the word? – crazy. Their thinking is seriously and "pathetically" compromised. That’s the diagnosis at which Hertzberg and others in his camp arrive without giving any consideration to the merits of the critics’ objections.

For some of us, this trend to pathologize dissent has the familiar aura of the way the Soviet government dealt with its critics, labeling them psychotic if they dared to voice their opposition to its policies. The next step was forced hospitalization and “treatment” – thankfully, Hertzberg et al. are not advocating that. Yet.

Instead, they issue soothing assurances from experts, like Paul Krugman who calls this massive and mandatory transfer of the American working and middle-class into the hands of private corporations “a great achievement.”

Reasonable people disagree on this. Rather than “establishing the principle that all Americans are entitled to essential health care,” as Krugman says (quoted by Hertzberg), the bill clearly establishes that all Americans are to be sacrificed like lambs on the altars of the corporate profits – or be punished if they refuse to participate in the sacrifice.

Call it what you will, but please do not call it a “great achievement,” or, even worse, a historic health care overhaul, as our grandiose and self-serving lawmakers and pundits are prone to do. That’s as offensive and possibly harmful as being diagnosed insane for pointing out the unpalatable obvious.

Hertzberg also compares the current legislation to the troubled and imperfect process of enacting Medicare under, first, Kennedy, and then Lyndon Johnson, as if forgetting that Medicare is a government-run program and not yet another corporate enterprise (which is what this health insurance reform effectively turns our health care into).

He lectures angry progressives, in the condescending manner of one who can so capably point out others' pathetic fallacies, that their indignation would be better directed at what an earlier generation of malcontents called “the system”—starting, perhaps, with the Senate’s filibuster rule, an inanimate object if there ever was one.

Curiously, or not at all, somehow Hertzberg does not seem to appreciate a possible fallacy creeping into his own reasoning -- that trying to change "the system" is only slightly more challenging than trying to change individual minds of "the system's" members.

But you know what they say: one man's fallacy is another's New Yorker's commentary.

Last but not least: Hertzberg takes exception to those who call Obama a “liar.” All right. What should we call the President then, if he has broken his major campaign and early presidential promises pertaining to the health care reform (e.g., on drug price controls and importation, public option, tax increases – you know, all those things that would make this legislation a real reform, and not just putting lipstick on the corporate pig)?

Not only that, but when recently asked about his abandonment of the public option, Obama stated that he never campaigned on it or promised it, which flies in the face of verifiable facts (i.e., his own documented statements). If these are not lies, what should we call them – terminological inexactitudes perhaps?

On one thing, however, I agree with Hertzberg: yes, it is all, um, pathetic.

Cross-posted from The Middle of Nowhere.