Developments in Iran

There's a little story out there which isn't getting a lot of play in the American press, possibly because the corollary to the journalistic axiom would be "if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead." It's not a story of death, or destruction, or anything other than a possible hope for the future.

See, there's this country called Iran, and the Iranian president for the last eight years has been a fiery little Holocaust-denier named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now, a lot of people don't understand how little power (comparatively) the Iranian president has, but he does have a certain amount of influence, and Ahmadinejad is now out of office.

His replacement is a reform-minded moderate named Hassan Rouhani, who, from 2003 to 2005 under former President Mohammad Khatami, was chief nuclear negotiator with the European Union. He campaigned on promises to improve human rights in Iran, restore the economy, and improve relations with the West.

Now, there are certain factions in America (and Israel) who believe that it's in their best interests to keep stirring up fear of Iran, and who will never believe that there are peaceful Muslims - Fox "News," for example, is trying to spin him as a Smiling Warmonger on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

One of the fears that the Islamophobic crowd wants to keep alive is the terror of a "nuclear Iran!" Because that would lead to immediate nuclear annihilation of Israel!

(Despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence that Iran has been building nuclear warheads, but that they have a history of "failure in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under its NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Safeguards Agreement... with respect to the reporting of nuclear material, its processing and its use, as well as the declaration of facilities where such material had been processed and stored...")

Despite the strident screams of the Rush Limbaugh's and Pam Geller's of the world, the White House today declared that they're willing to engage with Iran "to resolve the international community's deep concerns over Iran's nuclear program."

So, we might just be seeing the Middle East inching toward peace - expect the right wing to start pushing back against it as hard as they can.

Republican Obstruction and the Founding Fathers

I was reading some right wing article that made reference to Federalist paper #58.  This is one that I had never read, so I went to take a look at it.  I need hardly state that the content of this Federalist paper, written by James Madison, had absolutely nothing to do with the irrational point that the writer was trying to make.  However, at the end of Madison's essay, there was an amazing passage, which relates directly to the subversive, obstructionist behavior of the Republican party today.  Once again, they love to blab about the Constitution, without taking a moment to find out what it means.  Well, here is Madison.  I think you will find this interesting:

'It has been said that more than a majority ought to have been required for a quorum; and in particular cases, if not in all, more than a majority of a quorum for a decision...In all cases where justice or the general good might require new laws to be passed, or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal, or, in particular emergencies, to extort unreasonable indulgences."

Do I need to state the relevance of this passage to today's situation in Congress?  Through misuse of legislative privileges (most notably the filibuster in the Senate) power has been effectively transferred to the minority, and what is more, with exactly the result predicted by Madison at the founding of our republic- an "interested minority- the very rich- have indeed screened themselves from "equitable sacrifices to the general weal," and have continuously extorted "unreasonable indulgences."

Could there be a more succinct and accurate portrayal of what has gone on in this country the last decade or so, as the Republican party has transformed itself into the party of subversion?  But of course, Republicans, who constantly manufacture opinions to put into the mouths of the founding fathers, have no interest in what the founding fathers, with considerable wisdom, foresaw.  All the Republican talk about "original intent" is, like most of what they have to say, nothing but noise intended to shout down reasonable and informed opinion, in their unstoppable zeal to extort "unreasonable indulgences" for the rich criminals who pay to keep them in office.

That's mainly what I have to say about this, but I can't let Madison go without reprinting what he says next:

"Lastly, it would facilitate and foster the baneful practice of secessions...a practice subversive of all the principles of order and regular government; a practice which leads more directly to public convulsions, and the ruin of popular governments, than any other which has yet been displayed among us."

Once again, Madison proves prescient.  We have seen, the last few years, continuous threats by Republicans to secede, so confident are they in their divine right to rule the country, regardless of the outcome of elections.  As they dwindle more and more into a minor segment of the American people, and as their anger at their marginalization (which need never have happened, if they had not claimed superior rights for themselves all along) grows, their toying with the essential fabric of our country may very well bring about the "ruin of popular government," completing the job of wrecking the nation in the name of patriotism that they began in 1860.

Feline Friday

A Liliger Cub

All In The (Republican) Family

Remember Richard Nixon?  Richard who?  You know, the guy they tried to rehabilitate after he fled the White House behind his felonious VP and just ahead of the prosecutors, the guy they built a museum about with fake exhibits showing how he really was a great man who was victimized by the Liberal Press?

Well as long as we have Dick Nixon's words on tape we don't have to kick him around any more, since his unique talent for kicking himself in the ass with both feet in his mouth relieves us of the burden.

Watching All in the Family and completely failing to get what it was about, all the trickster could get out of it is that it "glorified homosexuality" made a hippie out to be a better man than a "hard-hat" and was likely to destroy America.  CNN plans to air this clip and more Nixon outrages tonight.  I don't plan to watch it.  I don't need to listen to this shitweasel, this piece of snake dung talking about how Rome and Greece were destroyed by "fags."  I had enough many years ago when I heard him talking to Billy Graham about how the Jews were destroying America.  I've had far more than enough of the party that supported him for decades, that attacked truth and justice to protect this horror, committed crimes to re-elect him and who now thinks he's way too far to the left for the modern tea-stained Republicans.

Watch this (my apologies for the ad) and ask yourself how this piece of human garbage ever got elected, how anyone would debase themselves and their country by supporting him in full knowledge of his words and deeds.  Ask yourself how low a person has to be to be a Republican.  Listen to his words America, and despair.

A shot in the dark

15 of them actually.

Well isn't that special -- or maybe not.  We will have to wait and see if  this shooting of an unarmed black man at night in his mother's driveway, (and in Florida no less,) will have Al Sharpton inter alia out in the streets demanding justice and the media yelling about wake up calls and demanding that we revoke the right of the police to carry guns or defend themselves with them.

Roy Middleton took two or three steps out to his car, parked in a carport set way back from the street  to get some cigarettes at two O'clock of a Florida morning.  Fumbling around in the dark, he heard invisible voices screaming, as police are wont to do, to put his hands up.  Thinking at first that it was a neighbor pulling his leg, he hesitated, but then complied, but police, thinking that anyone black and out at night  entering a car must be a thief, opened fire and shot him 15 times, according to a CNN report.  Oops.

Of course the official explanation is that he didn't comply with the shrieks, often obscene, often unintelligible that we so often hear during attempted arrests, that often confuse and stun people into momentary inaction particularly when they're in their homes or just outside their door or in their car or at 2 in the morning. There's nothing worse and little more deadly than a nanosecond's hesitation.

15 times, although police claim it was only 7.  Actually 2 hits out of  15 or even 7 at about ten yards is pretty damned poor, which indicates that either the officers were panicked or could hardly see well enough to tell a pack of cigarettes from a weapon.  Either way. . .

Mr. Middleton, says his mother, had been on pain pills for a back injury and perhaps that added to the normal 2:00 AM sluggishness -- perhaps not.  A next door neighbor says he thought Middleton was complying although he couldn't see clearly, but woe betide anyone, and anyone black in particular if he fails to instantaneously and abjectly prostrate himself  at the first shouted syllable from invisible voices in the dark of night - and even then.  15  times. There are bullet holes everywhere, but fortunately no bystanders were hit and fortunately for Mr. Middleton, none of the fusillade of bullets hit a vital area although he'll have to have reconstructive surgery on his leg as the bone was shattered. His car will need a few thousand in bodywork as well.

Perhaps as his elderly mother says, God saved him. Perhaps he has insurance. I hope so, so that his mother doesn't have to sell her house to pay for it because 'Obamacare" is still a long way off and Florida's Medicare Fraud governor is hell bent on ignoring it.

The sad thing is the frequency at which such things happen and a sadder thing is how often we never hear, or hearing once, we never hear again, like the case a few miles from my house where a cop shot a black man who after being deemed a suspicious character for being in a restaurant parking lot after closing time attempted to drive away and instead of perhaps shooting out a tire, the cop decided to kill the driver with a shot to the head.  In the last few months, I haven't seen or heard anything more about it and nobody seems to care because the media didn't see the chance to make a buck as they did with the Treyvon Martin case.

It remains to be seen what happens in Pensacola, but my money is on nothing. I'm betting that the self defense claim will be upheld, even though the Stand Your Ground legislation is as irrelevant here as it was in Sanford and perhaps because it's just as irrelevant and the media and the race baiters have already overplayed their hand.  If a local Florida newspaper poll has any relevance over 80% think that the Zimmerman verdict was justified because the prosecution could not prove, beyond a reasonable doubt that it was murder.

Reasonable doubt. Perhaps that alone is enough to make zealots angry, because after all, we all know who's guilty and who isn't because we've seen so many TV shows over the years.  You get a sixth sense, you know and isn't it better that every evil be punished even if some innocents happen to go to jail or to the execution chamber and even if minorities are over represented that way.  Contradiction?  Cognitive dissonance?  You bet, but passion and justice and caution and many other abstract terms don't play well together even if they make CNN fat and people like Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh and yes, Al Sharpton millionaires.

So will this be another "wake up call" which the "whole world is (but isn't) watching" despite riots, revolutions earthquakes and royal babies?  Will there be crowds accusing the Pensacola Police of  hunting black people for sport?  Will the parents and wives of these cops be getting death threats like the parents and family of George Zimmerman are getting?   I think not, although this should be worth more than the slight mention it's getting in the press, but then I've heard countless cases as bad and worse and I've seen them fade away.  History has made me a cynic. What about you?

AS NORTH CAROLINA GOES, SO GOES THE NATION

The Raleigh scene since the gubernatorial election could be slated as “GOP Gone Wild.” With a Republican governor and a Republican dominated state legislature, they have wasted no time tearing apart the fabric of our society from Women’s health to education, all are on the chopping block – unless you are one of the knuckle dragging, flag waving illiterates who have no clue what is going on here. Or one of the lucky associates who share the stratified air with their fellow Repungentans.

The governor has spouted off about bringing our state prosperity and improving our lives. To date this is what he and his minions have accomplished:

The Governor signed into a law an anti-abortion bill limiting abortion access to most women and allowing health care providers to opt out of performing abortions if they object (what’s next, opting out of caring for persons they object to because of color, ethnicity or sexual orientation? Forget the pesky Bill of Rights) It also eliminates abortion coverage for city and county employees and bars state residents from paying for the coverage through state health exchange plans.

It’s a great time to be a woman in North Carolina I tell ya!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/29/nc-gov-mccrory-signs-anti-abortion-bill-into-law-monday-night/

Next up, unemployment benefits – remember all those lazy suckers that don’t have a job? Let’s make sure they all end up starving on the streets. North Carolina has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation so the state legislature’s current claim to fame is to make North Carolina the ONLY state to reject federal funds meant to help states fund unemployment benefits for those who have been out of work long enough to have their current benefits expire. And for those that are still eligible? Why the good Governor and his toadies slashed benefits from a maximum of $535 a week to just $350 a week. Anyone want to try to feed, clothe and house a family of four on that?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/pat-mccrory-unemployment_n_2719342.html

The Governor also signed a voter suppression law that he admits HE HAS NOT READ! Thank you SCOTUS for paving the way for this bit of tragic tomfoolery.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/29/1227401/-Clueless-N-C-Gov-McCrory-will-sign-voter-suppression-bill-he-hasn-t-read

Next up education – we are now in the bottom three states in education spending. The state budget slashes education funds to public schools while the Governor continues to push for private school vouchers. He will tell you he plans on adding 1800 new teacher positions but the way education budgeting is structured it will not happen.

http://fayobserver.com/articles/2013/06/25/1265479

And finally the Governor and his minions also pushed through legislation to lift the state fracking moratorium in a crazy late night session that saw dirty deals and mistaken votes to make fracking a reality in our state. Yay…

http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/07/the-crazy-late-night-vote-that-legalized-fracking-in-north-carolina.html

But the Grand Governer is optimistic that he can create jobs and bring in companies to do business in North Carolina. If you owned a business, would YOU come here?

Whatever happened to "citizen journalism"?

I've been wracking the lump of meat I jokingly call a "brain," trying to figure out when, exactly, we turned the corner, as a country, with regards to whistleblowers.

I've been wondering this for a while. It crops up in weird places: earlier this year, a hacker revealed that the police were ignoring blatant evidence that a rape had been committed. He's facing ten years in jail, while the now-convicted rapists only got two years each. Was exposing the rape a worse crime than committing it?

At what point did we start to think it was more important to keep secrets hidden, instead of dealing with the crimes being covered up by those secrets?

Edward Snowden is currently hiding in a Moscow airport, living on vending machine borcht and energy drinks (I assume); he's under fire for disclosing the fact that the American government is spying on American citizens. And everybody else on the planet. His guilt is just accepted, at this point: the focus of the argument against him seems to be "well, he ran to another country! And he's a traitor!"

But what's being ignored here? Maybe the nature of his crime? Maybe the fact that... well, let me just quote from some people who were much smarter than me.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Does anybody remember what the phrase "probable cause" means? I'm pretty sure that a global, sweeping review of every phone call in America isn't covered by "describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Yeah, but fuck that Fourth Amendment, right? The Second Amendment is the only important one!

I think the best response came from the Rude Pundit:

The reaction that most infuriates the Rude Pundit is that Snowden didn't do the nation any favors because, well, fuck, we all knew that our phone calls and other information was being monitored... Yeah, but there's a huge difference between strongly suspecting that your husband is fucking around and being shown pictures of him balling the babysitter. There's vast gulf between "knowing" and knowledge. The intelligence services have been forced to say, "Okay, yeah, you caught us." The twist is that they're adding, "And, oh, by the way, we're gonna keep boning the babysitter. Just try to stop us from fucking her."

But if we're honest with ourselves, Snowden isn't the problem. His story is just a symptom of a larger problem.

In Maryland, the closing arguments in the Bradley Manning trial have been made, and as I write this, we await the judge's decision. Was Manning guilty of espionage?

Let's remember what he's guilty of, shall we? He leaked documents that showed that, despite our noble words and fine sentiments, America was still torturing and killing innocent people. He didn't damage our war effort, or put any spies in danger. He just told us that the American government was lying to us. He showed us what our tax dollars are paying for. He didn't commit espionage - he committed journalism.

Julian Assange, who's "guilty" of the same "crimes," held a press conference by telephone last week, where reporters also got to hear from Daniel Ellsberg - Ellsberg, you may or may not remember, was "guilty" of a similar "crime." He leaked the Pentagon Papers, embarrassing the US government; he never went to jail for telling the truth. Why should Manning? Why should Snowden?

Why should it be a criminal act to tell the truth?

California and New York See Huge Obamacare Savings

We all know how the opponents of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) predicted the destruction of the universe, and the restaurant at the end of it, if it passed. And we all know how many times the Republicans in the House have voted to repeal it.

But has the Republican Noise Machine bothered to tell their Chicken Littles anything about the good news that's been reported concerning the ACA?

Other than the sound of their heads exploding over President Obama's remarks after the Zimmerman trial, I've heard nothing.


Report: Obamacare's '80/20' rule has led to nearly $4 billion in savingsAs "Obamacare" continues to be one of the most controversial pieces of legislation ever implemented, a new report shows that Americans saved nearly $4 billion in 2012 due to a key provision in the Affordable Care Act. 

 The American people have often been divided by the new health care reform, and with all Americans required to be covered with insurance by January 2014, uncertainties are up in the air. While "Obamacare" is controversial, a new report shows that it has saved consumers billions of dollars. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the new "80/20" rule, which requires insurers to spend 80 percent of every dollar earned on medical services, helped saved American consumers $3.9 billion in 2012. 

 The savings were divided into two areas. About $3.4 billion was saved by insurers keeping their premiums lower in order to comply with the new law and $500 million came in the form of rebates being sent back to consumers who overpaid for their premiums. The total cost wasn't solely the result of the "80/20" rule, but it was the leading cause of premiums being kept at a lower level. 

 While some states have seen a rise in premiums, the result has not been pinpointed. Premiums often increase with each passing year, but "Obamacare" being the sole reason for the increase is not factual. A new report released last month noted that premiums in California will see a large decrease due to subsidies from the federal government. 

 "Rates will vary by region, age and level of coverage, and many lower-income Californias will qualify for federal subsidies that will greatly lower the premiums. The plans will come in four tiers, ranging from bronze to platinum. The former will charge lower premiums, but carry higher out-of-pocket benefits, and the latter will have the highest premiums but have the lowest out-of-pocket costs."


Here is Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics:

"Still, here’s what it seems is about to happen: millions of Americans will suddenly gain health coverage, and millions more will feel much more secure knowing that such coverage is available if they lose their jobs or suffer other misfortunes....
 So yes, it does look as if there’s an Obamacare shock coming: the shock of learning that a public program designed to help a lot of people can, strange to say, end up helping a lot of people — especially when government officials actually try to make it work"

And here's an opposing view by Peter Ferrara of Forbes:

"He overlooks the equal millions of Americans that will suddenly not get health coverage under “universal” Obamacare, the millions more who will choose not to get health insurance “secure knowing that such coverage is available” if they get sick later, the tens of millions who will lose their employer provided health insurance, regardless of whether they like that coverage or not, the millions more who will lose their full time jobs for part time jobs with lower incomes and no benefits, becoming truly middle class in the Obama/Krugman era, where middle class is just another word for declining real incomes." 

 Though opinions might vary on the new health care reform, millions of Americans will now have access to affordable health care. Whether you think the government should have a role is an open question and one that may or may not fit into your political ideology."

Here's another thought:  The Republicans in Congress  made a pact on the night of Mr. Obama's inauguration in January of 2009 to obstruct any and all proposed legislation, appointments, and programs so that his presidency will be a failure.

If they had worked with President Obama to help fine tune and implement what they themselves had proposed as an answer to our national health care crisis, perhaps a plan with fewer problems could have been hammered out through compromise.  But the GOP, in thrall to extreme ideologues, did all they could to scare the American people into believing that the passage of the ACA would be tantamount to treason and the descent into totalitarianism led by the America-hater, Kenyan Usurper, Barack Hussein Obama.

A list of those hideous totalitarian governments that provide universal coverage for  their citizens is HERE.

And here is a list of the countries from the World Health Organization that are better than the USA [ranked at 38] at providing health care to their citizens:

France
Italy
San Marino
Andorra
Malta
Singapore
Spain
Oman
Austria
Japan
Norway
Portugal
Monaco
Greece
Iceland
Luxemborg
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Ireland
Switzerland
Belgium
Columbia
Sweden
Cyprus
Germany
Saudi Arabia
UAE
Israel
Morocco
Canada
Finland
Australia
Chile
Argentina
Denmark
Dominica
Costa Rica
United States of America

Here's another ranking from Business Insider that ranks the USA better than WHO.  In their ranking we're not #38, we're #37!



U.S. Ranks Last Among Seven Countries on Health System Performance Based on Measures of Quality, Efficiency, Access, Equity, and Healthy Lives

"New York, NY, June 23, 2010—Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall compared to six other industrialized countries—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—on measures of health system performance in five areas: quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and the ability to lead long, healthy, productive lives, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. While there is room for improvement in every country, the U.S. stands out for not getting good value for its health care dollars, ranking last despite spending $7,290 per capita on health care in 2007 compared to the $3,837 spent per capita in the Netherlands, which ranked first overall."


New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead Last

Throughout the battle to pass legislation to bring the United States in line with other developed western democracies, President Obama received not one vote for the ACA from the GOP.  And yet that same political party has offered nothing as an alternative except to vote to overturn the only legislation that addresses our health care crisis. That's not political opposition; that's self-destructive obstinancy and insanity.

The GOP will pay dearly for it as the benefits of Obamacare continue to be reported. 
 

Another orphan.

It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan

Call it Outrage on Demand.  I wrote a while back about how the emotions and passions of American public remind me of  a marionette made to dance; made to laugh, cry, rage and mourn as strings are pulled by the various puppeteers, corporate, religious and political.  Some seemed to agree, but I'm not sure that many will admit to being just another wooden character in the great Punch and Judy show of America.

I used to blame Republicans for acting like dogs being sicced on selected targets, inflamed by slanted accounts of various incidents real or fabricated, to serve the political objectives of off-stage players.  Of late I think it describes us all: addicted to outrage, unable to advocate a cause without an outrage, and I'm increasingly alienated by the increasingly transparent performances of  Oz-like string pullers and drum beaters who in turn are increasingly desperate and increasingly careless.

It's easy to blame the media for the endless series of  outrages they trump up and package to command our obsessive attention, but we who watch, we who bark like dogs when told to, and demand that something be done or undone or punished or set free as the voices behind various curtains direct -- we who are addicted to following those voices because it makes us feel important, intelligent, worthy, are really to blame for the failure of  enlightenment, the fracking of progress and the increasing subjugation of the people.

It used to be easy for me to identify with the 'Left' when the right was openly advocating oppression, segregation, free speech and the like.  I became a 'lefty' when you could have your life ruined for being suspected or falsely accused of private political opinions, when conservatives could tell you where you could live, who you could marry, what you could do on Sunday, what you could and couldn't read, when they could restrict what you could work at, how much you could be paid, what public and private facilities you could use based on stereotype and prejudice and  religious belief and superstition.

It was easy to loath the party who supported Nixon, promoted him, lied for him and maintained ludicrous fictions about his words for decades after he skulked out of office rather than be removed.  It's been easy to feel disgust at their attempts to unseat Clinton and it's still easy to laugh at the claims of Communism, the promises that his tax policies would bankrupt us and his 'spending' was ruinous.  The stench of Republican hypocrisy was never more apparent than when they subsequently supported the ruinous spending, the reckless deregulation under Bush II.  The abandonment of government responsibility and massive escalation of  peremptory executive power all of  which actually was ruinous.  The Party that has resumed trashing the Executive with  unsupported theory, laughable fictions, vague, substance-free objections is no more worthy of  respect or support than it has been in half a century, but is that enough to make me a Democrat any more?

Is it enough to distract me from the troubling observation that the Democrats have also been the party that supports, perhaps eagerly supports silly regulations and prohibitions for their own sake, because 'our side' is touting it?  Are we as doctrinaire and unwilling to temper enthusiasm for obeying idiocies from national speed limits to regulations on how big a paper cup you can drink from?  Have we, and I'm still saying "we" for the moment, begun to paste together racial incidents from various events so that we can pretend it's still the 1960's when we had a clear mission?  Are we so obsessed with safety and security that we can justify anything "as long as one life is saved?"  Are we selling fear and ignoring fact, denying the abject failure of what we have sold as a panacea and refusing to change things that don't work or make things worse? After all, we're the party that signed off on that knife in the heart of liberty obscenity the Patriot Act, the party that seems to support the idea that unwarranted searches, universal surveillance, random investigation, hidden cameras, wiretaps and the reading of mail are a justifiable price for safety.  Incarceration without charges, secret trials and all the trappings of  totalitarianism all because "freedom isn't free."

The misrepresentation of  the George Zimmerman case by desperate, old-guard Democrats like Al Sharpton, with his long record of inventing racial incidents apparently forgotten, may have been some sort of last straw for me.  No I don't think the shooting was justified, but the case is black and white only in an ethnic sense. It has nothing to do with a law the overturning of  which is the real objective.  I want nothing to do with people who don't recognize that, who have no intention of reading the law or thinking about its implications to this case.  I'm tired of people who steadfastly misrepresent facts and law if they conflict with doctrine, who see racism everywhere, crazed, machine gun toting murderers everwhere, like the John Birchers see Communism and the Christian Right sees the devil.  I'm reminded of those who supported the horror in Vietnam because they missed WWII.

"Murder has now been legalized in half the states,”

 says Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Washington (D.C.)-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.  Of course that's as wild and wooly and dishonest as the "abortion is murder" shibboleth.  Are we no longer the party of  liberation but the party of  bans, controls and worse, the party of the same old fictions, the same old failed solutions,  fanatically held? How does it compare to hyperbolic falsehoods we've been getting from the other side all these decades?  Are we as sold on the idea that extremism in defense of virtue is no vice as Spiro the crook Agnew?  Are middle of the road, pragmatic Democrats anywhere in sight?

The sordid events in Sanford do not mirror the murder of Medgar Evers or Dr. King or the civil rights workers in 1964 Mississippi. They have nothing to do with racism on the streets or in the courts.  They do not represent a return to Jim Crow and if  Democrats can't seem to live without an endless supply of  convenient but inapposite outrages; if  the Democrats can't find any way to promote progress toward freedom and justice for all without witch hunts and race baiting, lies and fabrications and misrepresentations, media circuses and fear mongering, then I'm an alien to both parties.

It was easy to appear to be on the side of the angels when we had the Commander Guy, the Old Ranger and Tricky Dick to be compared to, but after two consecutive presidential victories; after gaining some ground on the devil, it's time to ask ourselves if we haven't become, or at least come to more closely resemble what we've been fighting -- or have we been that way all along?

Justified

This isn't the first time I've said that Justice in America isn't about the law, it's about the lawyers.  It won't be the last time.  The web footed honkers and quackers at CNN were still telling each other as I switched it all off and went to bed that we have a pattern of letting killers go free, but if you have a memory longer than a goose and if you still make an effort to look past the selected stories the angertainment industry allows us you'd be aware that if there is a pattern, it's a pattern of  framing the innocent.

I was appalled last Friday night when Cornell West told us on Bill Maher's show that Florida's Stand Your Ground law allowed everyone to carry a gun, but not surprised.  The level of ignorance about gun laws is shockingly high, stubbornly held and sadly near universal amongst those most vociferously opposed to public ownership of weapons. Tragically sad because the  law is written to exclude the right to chase down, confront and threaten or even to escalate a dispute if one wants to claim self-defense, but as I said, it's not about the law, it's about glib and sarcastic trial lawyers, dull witted jurors and ignorance.

I dread to read the news this morning. I don't want to lose my breakfast over yet more railing against guns, I don't want to hear that the decision to acquit Zimmerman was all about race or any of the other stale arguments imposed on this case before Trayvon Martin was interred. As far as I'm concerned, it's just another flim-flam defense based on making the law seem to say what it doesn't, and it doesn't say that you can shoot someone -- an unarmed someone who knocks you down or gives you a bloody nose particularly when you instigated the fight and violated someones civil rights in the process.  In fact, the law was designed to allow someone like Martin to use deadly force to defend himself against someone, some "crazy cracker" posing a credible threat to his life to force him out of any place he had a right to be.  He brought his fists and some skittles to a gun fight.

Innocent people wind up on death row. People are incarcerated for decades and their lives ruined for smoking Marijuana or receiving naked pictures of a girlfriend on a cellphone. People are locked up with false accusations and to me, that's worse than that a guilty man should go free, but although the NRA will doubtless try to make him a folk-hero like Bernhard Goetz, there is little similarity. Martin wasn't carrying a sharpened screwdriver and demanding money and Goetz didn't corner the muggers in a dark alley. Goetz wasn't a vigilante, Zimmerman I think, was, defending a community against burglars by carrying weapons and confronting and chasing suspicious people, something the gun laws do not permit.

But again, it's about the lawyers and while it's a respectable and necessary profession in any civilization, people like Mark O'Mara disgust me, convincing a jury that his "muscle tone" and perhaps his dangerous, hoodie wearing image was responsible not only for Zimmerman having chased him down but justified shooting him.

No doubt many axes of all sorts will be ground on this case.  Perhaps as with OJ and Bernhard Goetz there will be a wrongful death suit and I think there's a good case for it. Although I don't think either victim or vigilante was without fault or are in any way heroes, I do think the preponderance of responsibility is on Zimmerman.  There is a responsibility on us as well -- not to traduce the law, misrepresent it or to make more of this case than it is for the purpose of furthering our politics, but of course, this being America it's a false hope to expect us  not to -- as false as we are.