Shame, Shame

Remember when anyone like the Dixie Chicks, for instance, or you and I expressed any sense of shame for any actions our country may have taken or not taken: any shame for having elected Caligula Jr. the Warpresident?  Well certainly the great weight of Limbaugh and the fire-farting far right came down on such unfortunates back in the day when expressing pessimism about the Stock Market was evidence of being an "America Hater."  Even peripheral actions like perhaps wanting to publish the names of soldiers killed in the early days of our Shokinaw war in Iraq was disgraceful and shameful because there was the chance someone might use it to express regret for or disapproval of any action of a Republican president, illegal or otherwise.

So shocked I was to hear than ol' rant 'n rage Rush declare yesterday that he was ashamed -- that's right, ashamed of the United States of America.  It's hard to reconcile that with all the loud Limbaughian flatulation when Michelle Obama said that for the first time in her life she was really proud of our country, which allowed speculation that she might ever have thought less of it than she thought of God Almighty or perhaps Allah to some dittoheads.  There's usually no worse offense, nothing closer to  treason than not to gibber in epiphanic ecstasy at any description of  our New Jerusalem, our greatest of all Christian Nations under God and all it ever has done.

But not this time. 

“To be watching all of this, to have my intelligence – all of us – to have our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it is….it just makes me ashamed,” the fat man sang on his afternoon radio program. “Seriously man, here we get worked up over 44 billion dollars — that’s the total amount of money that will not be spent that was scheduled to be spent this year.”

Only $44 billion he said as though we would hardly have a problem if we hadn't and still didn't have the most expensive and protracted war in our history and one which not only didn't pay for itself as promised, but didn't solve any of the problems it was supposed to do.   How many trillions did George spend and refuse to pay for?  Isn't nearly all of that "spending" he wants to cut service on the Commander Guy's extravagance?  Well of course it is, but all that sound and fury could never be as offensive to Rush as making sure that other people don't have to die of things like infected anal cysts or that some kid doesn't have to go to bed as hungry as Rush gets after 10 minutes of not stuffing his fat face. It's shameful that the less than wealthy should presume to do more than ditto him.

“We just keep spending more money. We create more dependency, we get more and more irresponsible one crisis to the next, all of them manufactured. Except for the real crisis that nobody ever addresses — and that is we can't afford it.”

Nobody Rush?  Perhaps not so you could hear over your own sound and fury, but your party hasn't shut up long enough for anyone to pause and ask who decided we could afford the most expensive war we ever had because the magic Tax Fairy would pay for it.  Wasn't that a manufactured crisis that created a real crisis -- the WMD that weren't, the yellowcake hoax?  We couldn't afford it and you told us we could because tax cuts for you would create magic money instead of the predictable debt and crisis that in fact created all that dependence.

 

So,  I'm sorry to insult your intelligence with the truth and sorry to mention that your followers tend to be on the two digit side of the bell curve, but your self serving, self contradictory logorrheic slurry

of never-ending shit is an embarrassment to God and country -- and to me. 

“I've said the same things over and over for 25 years” 

 

said Rush, but of course he said it during the most prosperous period in our history as well and while the debt shrank and the surplus grew. "I just hate slick Willie" he said.  "I mean he just makes me sick."  While employment and wages grew and debt shrank and Lord Rushbaugh and millions of us got rich: while the economy bloomed and peace prevailed; while he screamed about the greatest tax increases in world history.  "Both parties are spreading fear and panic," said Rush who may be afraid that he'll not get this year's Oscar for fear and panic mongering. What else has he ever done?

 

But hey, I wouldn't want to live in a country Limbaugh approved of so I can't say that I'm sorry for his simpering claim to shame.  He's not ashamed of backing Joseph Koney while claiming that Obama was not a Christian, he's not ashamed that none of his prophecies, his apocalyptic warnings  have shown merit.  He's not really ashamed at all. It's just another gambit, another  lachrymose plea for attention, another distraction, another smokescreen to hide his irrelevance, his dependency, his shameful life.

 

Justified

It isn't common for the US media to make an issue of the level of violence in South Africa, but Oscar Pistorius is a celebrity and the woman he's accused of murdering was a celebrity.  The lives of our secular pantheon are important to the public and particularly if the celebrity has to do with sports.  Are the successful athletes we love to appoint as role models, whom we love to pretend to emulate, really paragons of virtue and discipline or does their drive, their ego, their motivation spill over into something sometimes less than wholesome?  I'm not going to generalize about the famous, but like the USA, South Africa is a violent nation and one with a long history of violent racism and violent crime and a population with a large difference between haves and have-nots. The murder rate is high, about 50 per day, and while I read that only about 12% of South Africans own guns, the probability is that many more are not reported and are illegally owned.

White, middle and upper class South Africans live in fear and those who can afford to, live in gated enclaves behind iron barred doors and windows; behind electrified fences with sophisticated alarm systems and armed security guards -- and they own guns.  The standard of living is lower for non-whites but the level of fear is high for all and one can argue that it's justified. Guns are used in 77 per cent of house robberies and 87 per cent of business robberies, and they are the cause of death in more than half of all murders.  Many burglars are seeking guns over other items.

South Africa is often described as a "gun-loving" country. Yes, of course if one lives on a remote farm in the bush, there are leopards and lions and hippos and elephants that argue for heavy arms, but I think that for the most part, owning a gun is all about crime and a sense of security in a violent nation. According to Wikipedia, A survey for the period 1998–2000 compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ranked South Africa second for assault and murder (by all means) per capita and first for rapes per capita in a data set of 60 countries. Total crime per capita was 10th out of the 60 countries in the dataset. A study by the government  on the nature of crime in South Africa  concluded that the country is exposed to high levels of violence as a result of different factors, including:

The normalization of violence. Violence comes to be seen as a necessary and justified means of resolving conflict, and males believe that coercive sexual behaviour against women is legitimate.
 

The reliance on a criminal justice system that is mired in many issues, including inefficiency and corruption.

A subculture of violence and criminality, ranging from individual criminals who rape or rob to informal groups or more formalized gangs. Those involved in the subculture are engaged in criminal careers and commonly use firearms, with the exception of Cape Town where knife violence is more prevalent. Credibility within this subculture is related to the readiness to resort to extreme violence.

The vulnerability of young people linked to inadequate child rearing and poor youth socialization. As a result of poverty, unstable living arrangements and being brought up with inconsistent and uncaring parenting, some South African children are exposed to risk factors which enhance the chances that they will become involved in criminality and violence. 

The high levels of inequality, poverty, unemployment, social exclusion and marginalization.

Much of this should seem familiar to Americans and the kind of  justification many Americans feel in owning guns is the same. Discussions of gun control in South Africa have understandably become as heated as they once again have in the US after high profile, heavily publicized murders, but in neither place will effective debate be conducted without acknowledging the various reasons people buy and own guns: without acknowledging the kinds of perpetrators and their proportion.  Not as long as we focus on undoing the latest headline, not as long as we depend on fear rather than fact.

In both nations, the murder rate is declining. In South Africa after tougher limits on gun ownership took effect in 2004,  the number of gun-related crimes has dropped by 21 per cent. The Globe and Mail tells us that  this decrease is not merely because of a general decline in crime in South Africa. One study of female victims, we are told,  by the country’s Medical Research Council, found that gun-related deaths had dropped by nearly half from 1999 to 2009, while other causes of violent death were virtually unchanged. You'd think you'd hear us talk more about the how and why of it.

In the US, gun-related violence has been declining for longer and has declined further.  Does this argue that gun control can be effective?   I think it does. Does that prompt us to improve our efforts along the same lines and with regard to underlying causes?  I think it does,  yet in the US I see little effort being made to acknowledge this; to look at what works and what has not worked -- but rather we seem to champion ideas without support of experience, despite experience while demonizing the pragmatic, scientific efforts. Too many of our arguments and most of the angriest seem to have more to do with blaming certain weapons with certain appearances or often fictitious attributes and rely on using certain kinds of descriptions designed to inflame, not to inform -- and may people who agree in principle that there are things we can do to lower the violence and the fear find it impossible to work together, to cooperate through the barrage of  passionate slogans and shoddy shibboleths.  Too many of our arguments depend on denial and maintaining, despite the truth, that everything is getting worse as if hope were an enemy, confidence a conspiracy and truth irrelevant.

We Americans seem to think that nothing that works elsewhere can work here, that we are so unique in our nature and the nature of our problems that we retreat into solipsism and blindness.  In fact, looking at our history of prohibitions and bans and the emotional dishonesty and selective blindness that supported them,  it seems to be an American tradition of long standing.

Gun in 60 Seconds

As we slowly drag some of America's less-evolved citizens toward the reality that the Second Amendment is not Holy Writ, I've noticed a number of very specific bad debating tactics that the NRA likes to use.

There's all the usual suspects: attacking the messenger ("you liberals hate guns! And the Constitution!"), the slippery slope argument ("if they ban assault weapons, next they'll ban all guns!"), and on and on.

Most of them are pretty easy to combat, if you know what you're talking about. And let's be real: if you are required to accept "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" without any limitations, then the Second Amendment isn't restricted to guns, either. Nuclear weapons are "arms," and therefore all citizens should be allowed to own them.

Since even the most conservative member of the Supreme Court says that there can, in fact, be limitations on gun ownership, maybe it's time for somebody to put a muzzle on Wayne LaPierre and let the adults talk.

But on that subject -- knowing what you're talking about -- there is one little thing that bothers me. In blogs and on talk shows, I keep hearing people making obvious, blatant mistakes that occasionally get them in trouble. So let's put a little reality into our side of the argument. Here's some little facts relevant to the gun debate that you should probably know.

Guns aren't difficult to understand, nor are they difficult to use. Literally any idiot can learn to use one, and most of them can learn to use them very well. (Here's where I want to follow up with "...for example, look at the Marines," but my son is a Marine now, and I've promised to be good.) However, just like any other hobby enthusiast, there is a certain amount of specialized knowledge involved.

To put it another way, gun nuts are like LARPers or comic book geeks: they have specific terminology, and a knowledge of trivia that is unique to their hobby, and if you get any of it wrong, they'll scream like little bitches and try to say that you don't know anything about the subject.

Trust me: having carried one for 21 years, I'm reasonably familiar with the subject, and it isn't rocket science. So here's the least you need to know.

Always be sure that you're using the right terminology. We want an "assault weapons ban," not a ban on assault rifles.

There's are important reasons for this, and most of them have to do with the legal definitions of these two terms. See, an "assault weapon" is a generic term, and can be expanded or contracted to cover a multitude of sins.

An assault rifle, on the other hand, has a very specific definition (and yes, I'm using Wikipedia here - it's the most accessible source I found, and it is at least getting this part of the debate right):

An assault rifle is a selective fire (selective between automatic, semi-automatic, and burst fire) rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine....

Assault rifles are categorized in terms of using an intermediate cartridge power that is between light machine guns firing full power cartridges, which are intended more for sustained automatic fire in a light support role, and submachine guns, which fire a lower powered pistol cartridge rather than a rifle cartridge.

Fully automatic fire refers to an ability for a rifle to fire continuously until the magazine is empty and no rounds remain; "burst-capable" fire refers to an ability of a rifle to fire a small yet fixed multiple number of rounds with but one press of the trigger; in contrast, semi-automatic refers to an ability to fire one round per press of a trigger.

I could go on about the difference between the full-auto sear (a little metal piece on the inside of the M-16 that allows it to keep firing until you run out of ammo), and the burst-fire sear (which I thought was an awesome innovation when it came out), but all you really need to know is that replacing a sear isn't difficult.

More than that, though, there are conversion kits that make it even easier. So don't let anybody try to tell you that it takes some kind of mystic metalwork to convert a civilian AR-15, which is an assault weapon, into a functional assault rifle. A couple of pliers, a small punch (I usually ended up using a small screwdriver) - there are specialized tools that make working on an M-16 easier (like a barrel wrench), but damned few of them are required.

There are other terms that drive the gun hobbyists crazy: the bullet is the metal bit that flies out of the gun. The whole thing, including the casing, the powder and everything, is a shell, a round, or a cartridge. Never call it a bullet.


For some reason, this makes them crazy (or "crazier, maybe).

Also, don't say "clip," say "magazine." This is another of those stupid pedantic things that make spittle fly across the room. A clip can feed ammo into a magazine - a magazine feeds ammo into a weapon. If you really care enough to read about it, go here - but otherwise, just avoid it.

They also can get really cranky about the word "gun" - it's a very generic term that covers everything from handguns to Howitzers. Just so you know.

(Overall, I find the whole thing funny - it's like listening to comic nerds screaming "You don't even know the relationship between the Golden Age and Silver Age Superman! Why should we listen to you about anything?" But I find a lot of things funny, even when nobody else does.)

__________

(If you want to get even farther into the argument, here's a piece I ran across in gathering links for this post. I tend to avoid DailyKos just out of habit, but the writer gets into a lot of the tactics and terminology that might come in handy for somebody.)

The NRA: Anti-Semitic Anti-Matter and more ...

By (O)CT(O)PUS

It seems the NRA hates everyone – 506 people and organizations in all. Here is a partial list of names on the NRA’s now infamous Enemies List:

Charities, civic groups, and religious groups:

American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, Church of the Brethren, Hadassah, Mennonite Central Committee, Anti-Defamation League, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Hadassah, the League of Women Voters, Children’s Defense Fund, National Council of Jewish Women, National Safe Kids Campaign, People for the American Way, the American Trauma Association, U.S. Catholic Conference, the Church of the Brethren, Unitarian Universalist Church, United Methodist Church, United Church of Christ, and the YMCA, as examples.

Hollywood celebrities:

Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Oprah, Lauren Bacall, George Clooney, Drew Barrymore, Matt Damon, Spike Lee, Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Mary Tyler Moore, Meryl Streep, Jerry Seinfeld, Ed Asner, Bob Barker, Sean Connery, Sigourney Weaver, Sylvester Stallone, The Temptations, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Bette Midler, Gloria Estefan, Tony Bennett, Beyoncé, and Jon Bon Jovi, as examples.

Wait! Here’s more:

Garry Trudeau, columnists Cynthia Tucker, Frank Rich and Jimmy Breslin, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Rabbi David Saperstein, federal Judge Lyle Elmer Strom, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, and former President Jimmy Carter, as examples.

Free Enterprise too:

American Century, Argosy Casino, Levi Strauss Jeans, Baltimore Sun, New York Times, Newsweek, Ben & Jerry’s, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Crown Petroleum, Hallmark Cards, Kansas City Chiefs, Kenneth Cole, Lamar Advertising, Malinckrodt, Sara Lee, Southland Corporation, Southwestern Bell, Sprint, St. Louis Rams, Time Warner, Capital Cities/ABC, Columbia Broadcasting, Gannett, Knight-Ridder, and NBC, as examples.

Bizarre! Patrick Steward of Star Trek fame wrote on Twitter that making the NRA list was the most prestigious award he ever received. Earlier this week, in response to unwelcome public scrutiny and scorn, the NRA scrubbed the “enemies” list from their website (story here). They can run but they cannot hide. Some enterprising folks have copied and posted it elsewhere in Cyberspace where the NRA cannot cover up their PR disaster (original list here).

An Insult to All Americans

Like many of you, I was looking forward to brushing up on my Spanish listening to Mr. Rubio with his Spanish language response to the SOTU. Then I learned that the Spanish version will be pre-recorded and only broadcast on Spanish language television. Why pre-record it? No marco senso! So, in reality, neither the English language version or the Spanish will actually be a response. It's just going to be predictable diatribe in response only to whatever the republican brass feels that is predictable by Obama or somehow relevant. What's he going to do? Record it at the same time he is listening to it in earphones? Ludicrous. What an insult. Que barbaridad! My Mexican friends hate that guy! Peace out! FJ

Mexican 'ape woman' buried after 150 years

I know that people will think I am reporting this story out of some sort of sick humor, but I'm not.  Read on:

"An indigenous Mexican woman put on display in Victorian-era Europe because of a rare genetic condition that covered her face in thick hair was buried in her home state on Tuesday in a ceremony that ends one of the best-known episodes from an era when human bodies were treated as collectible specimens.
 

With her hairy face and body, jutting jaw and other deformities, Julia Pastrana became known as the "ape woman" after she left the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa in 1854, when she was 20, and was taken around the United States by showman Theodore Lent, according to a Norwegian commission that studied her case.

She sang and danced for paying audiences, becoming a sensation who also toured Europe and Russia"

Here is a picture of Juia Pastrana:

Now, why am I interested in her?  It's because I remember very clearly the first time I ever saw this photo.  It was in the late 1960's, and it appeared on the front page of an issue of the Thunderbolt, the newspaper of the National States Rights party, where it was represented as a photo of a crossbreed between a black person and a gorilla, proving that blacks were not really human beings, but apes.

Years later, looking through a book on the history of carnivals, I came across the picture again, this time of course correctly describing what it was.  As you can imagine, I was quite surprised, but at least I was set straight (not that I ever believed that it was really a black person-ape hybrid.  Please give me that much credit.)  But how many ignorant, gullible, hate filled people swallowed this story, fully convinced that it proved that blacks and whites were not the same species?

Whoever wrote this story must have know that it was a lie, but it accomplished its purpose- spreading racist hatred- so I am sure that like right wingers everywhere, they didn't give a damn that they were engaging in one of the lowest forms of human behavior possible.  Well, that's the legacy that we still bear, so that a miniscule percentage of rich people in the South could claim to own other human beings.  And no, sad to say, we have not paid off their debt, a hundred and fifty years later, and their descendants are working as hard as ever to see that the debt hangs around our necks forever.

As the lady said, "What a world."

Who Voted Against VAWA?

The Violence Against Women Act easily passed a Senate vote today by a margin of 78 to 22.  Here are the 22 Republicans who voted NO:

 John Barrasso (Wyo.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Cornyn (Texas), Ted Cruz (Texas), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), James Inhofe (Okla.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Ron Johnson (Wisc.), Mike Lee (Utah), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Jim Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kansas), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.).

I Love Code Pink

But let's face it, Code Pink isn't protesting the sadistic policies of Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld.  They're not reminiscing about Abu Ghraib or Bagram.  Fallujah or Baghdad.  The kangaroo trial of Saddam Hussein.  The murder of his two sons.  They're going after our guy and his C.I.A.  His Joint Chiefs.  His Pentagon.  It has been long enough.  The policy of American exceptionalism has to end now.  It is not moral to hold the world to one standard of justice and fair play and wholly exempt ourselves from any responsibility to international laws and treaties.

My friend, Che Pasa, has offered an affectionate criticism of Obama and the policies of his administration entitled, "Documenting the Atrocities."  It's a good starting point.  He always has something important to say.  He doesn't say it in a way calculated to hurt other people.

I'm not really gifted in the same way.  I need your help.  I don't fucking get it.  Obviously we have all been tolerating these assassinations with their uncontrolled collateral damage as somehow necessary or possibly even justified; the dark underbelly of the insensate beast that is the C.I.A./Pentagon.  Maybe you haven't been so passive in your acceptance.  I don't think I ever anticipated that we would still be talking about this in a second term for Obama.  I understand that one man, not even the president, can really change the trajectory of U.S. national security; the forces that are at play with powerful government and military agencies.  No more than the captain of a large vessel can throw himself in the path of the rudder or challenge the monarch that has commissioned him.  But it is time for the American people to weigh in.  Make our voices heard.  And it is time for the United States of America to take part in international treaties that insure justice and humane treatment for all peoples of the world.

It's not right.  It's not acceptable.  It's probably not legal.  If it happened to us, we would massively retaliate.

Under Bush, the U.S. refused to ratify Kyoto and claimed exception to the International Court.  That's because they were the bad guys, right?  The fucking war criminals.  Obviously there would have been dozens, if not hundreds of cases brought before the Hague.  It's time for a new Geneva Convention or some equivalent meeting of the United Nations.    If drone warfare is not something to be condoned, this needs to be agreed upon by the nations of the world.  Is it right to conduct assassinations in countries that are not engaged in warfare, declared or undeclared?  If the rights of innocent civilians are already protected in Geneva Convention Protocols, should not the U.S. be prosecuted for indiscriminately violating these protections?

I hate this monster John Brennan.  I hope he goes down like a Viet Cong company engulfed by a flame-thrower.  Like the little girl hit by napalm.  Like the innocent Iraqi young men rounded up and shoved into prisons that practiced torture like it was all in good fun.  I hope the son-of-a-bitch never works again as long as he lives.  Carl Levin asked him quite simply if he believed that waterboarding was torture.  His response was a torture of slowness.  He said something like the word "torture" is politically inflammatory.  What a dumb, fucking monster.

In a related moment of American shame, whatever select Senate committee that is privileged to the deepest, darkest secrets of the American exceptionalism model was just subjected to some kind of horrifying legalistic logic that somehow justified drone strikes.  Irregardless of all that has happened in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.  I recall the tortured legalistic logic that John Sununu and Alberto Gonzalez used to justify torture, extraordinary rendition and illegal detention.

We can do better.  America doesn't have to be the dragon.  Killing muslims and their families only creates more terrorists that hate the United States and their allies.   I thought that we learned that painful lesson ten years ago.

Jindal and Tonic

Bobby Jindal got some traction last week by telling the GOP that it was time to "stop being the stupid party." And, you know, it would be awesome if they could do that. But let's consider the source, shall we?

This is Bobby Jindal, after all. The man who claims to have exorcised a demon from his girlfriend in college. An act which apparently made him believe in an even stronger-than-average "War on Christianity," since he decided, a few years ago, that churches should be allowed to set up their own armed security forces. Because that's worked so well throughout history, like with the Inquisition, or the Crusades.

Of course, Bobby is also a big supporter of handing tax money to churches. Like giving them education funds. Even if they use biology textbooks that teach that the Loch Ness monster is real:

"Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur."

Which goes to explain, in part, why Louisiana's education system ranks third worst in the nation.

Jindal also thinks it's a good idea to drastically cut Medicaid, which doesn't make much sense when there's only one state with more people below the poverty line (per capita) than yours.

(Mississipi, if you were wondering.)

But maybe it just makes sense. When your hellhole of a state also sports the highest infant mortality rate, the fifth-highest maternal mortality rate, the fourth-worst life expectancy rate, and the fifth-highest obesity rate in the country, all that medical care is just being wasted, isn't it?

It does lead you to wonder, though: how low do you have to go before Bobby Jindal can see that the GOP is being the stupid party?

Teach the Controversy

I'm sure most of you have heard the above phrase.  It has arisen, in the last few years, as a battle cry among evangelical Christians and their enablers, after it became clear that they were never going to be able to convince sane people to replace the established scientific facts of evolution with a pack of infantile myths crammed down the throats of school children.  So, they fell back on their "compromise" position, which involves battering us into treating their patent nonsense on an equal footing with scientific fact.  This would be the "centrist" thing to do, and therefore, it would be fair to everyone, right?

Well, I am sure most of you are familiar with this idiocy, but what I have been noticing lately is that it is a paradigm of the entire Republican approach to reality- the fabrication of a wholly specious (and in the end utterly ridiculous) alternate reality, and then immense pressure being applied to force people to grant this mythology equal validity with real evidence about the world in which we live.  The result of this behavior, normally abetted in every way by our miserable excuse for a mainstream press, has been the watering down and eventual neutralization of every attempt to respond meaningfully to the problems that we face.

We are seeing a classic example of this at work today in the gun debate provoked by the recent school shooting in Connecticut.  Even the most rational, harmless proposals from the left, like eliminating the gun show loophole or requiring guns to be kept securely, are obscured and neutralized by endless, moronic right wing bleating about video games and violent movies- in fact nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to blame the left (and the Jews in particular, as is always the case when someone on the right attacks Hollywood) for the damage wrought by uncontrolled gun possession in this country.  The real evidence that violent murder is directly related to the number of available guns, and that people with guns are far more likely to be victims of gun violence than people without them, is washed away by the endless crackpot theories from the right, which continue to receive respectful treatment from the press.  The result this time, as in all previous occasions, is inevitably going to be a slow draining away of any momentum for dealing with the problem, until nothing but the most superficial action is taken; where the issue will rest until the next appalling gun murder, at which time the process will repeat itself.

Of course, there is no more blatant example of this phenomenon than the supposed controversy about global warming.  Although scientists who study this subject agree 100% (okay, okay, in reality only 99.83%) that man made global warming is a threat to the continued existence of the human race, pseudo-scientific lies paid for by the energy industry are routinely treated as equally trustworthy as scientific research; the result being that the real issues (which are beyond doubt to anyone who cares about the truth) are obscured, momentum for dealing with this very real problem is dissipated, and nothing is done.

And let us not forget the most damaging and destructive of all Conservative pseudo-theories: supply side economics.  Despite this notion being patent nonsense from the very beginning, and despite the fact that every effort to implement it has resulted in nothing but disaster, its proponents- rich people who stand to benefit from it regardless of its effects on everyone else- continue to pour money into spreading this looking-glass lunacy, and the mainstream press continues to collaborate with them in treating their claims as equally valid as conclusions derived from actual real world evidence.  And thus, no amount of being right time after time can result in the likes of Paul Krugman being treated as anything but a crazy ideologue, while conversely, the many people who have pushed this disastrous nonsense in the face of failure after failure are still treated as if they were serious participants in some sort of actual dialogue, rather than hired intellectual thugs employed to prevent the truth from interfering with the schemes of their masters.

Though I could go on here, let me finish with right wing, neoconservative foreign policy, whose total reliance on belligerent bullying and massive acquisition of military hardware has, as far as I can tell, produced nothing but one disaster after another, but which is still promoted far and wide as the answer to every foreign policy problem the country ever faces.

And thus, government in the United States today:  reality versus deliberate lies concocted to achieve a desired outcome for a small fraction of the people, on every single issue; and a playing field in which the rules- that both sides must be given equally respectful treatment- insure that those who want to deal with our country's problems are simply worn out fighting against idiotic but highly financed nonsense from their opponents.   Thus, despite occasional victories, we seem to be able make little real headway in our fight to right our country, which continues to founder in seas of dissembling and self-serving nonsense.

Given this situation, it is amazing that Obama and the Democrats were able to muster enough support to enable them to avoid a total depression.  Of course, the forces of ignorance keep doing everything they can to push us back off the economic cliff, so sad to say, the results aren't really in on that one.  It is enough to make most any rational person just give up and move to Costa Rica or something; of course that is exactly what it is intended to do, so that the forces of destruction can continue eating away at the flesh of the country until its corpse collapses on top of them.  So far, their strategy, no matter how implausible and ridiculous it may seem from the outside, seems to be making slow but continued progress as it slouches toward inevitable apocalyptic destruction.  Of course, to the religious lunatics on the right, that would be a wonderful thing too.