Yer Heathen Laws

Today he shall be lifted up and tomorrow he shall not be found, because he is returned into his dust, and his thought is come to nothing.

-1 Macabees 2:63 -

It's no surprise that the nattering nabobs of nullification and true haters of the secular Constitution  are resisting the Supreme Court's latest ruling forbidding the Confederacy to ban some marriages on Christian grounds. I'm talking about Texas, but the Lone Star State is hardly alone.  It's a "lawless ruling" says Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and if clerks are fined for refusing to issue marriage licences, he will defend them in court.  Like many a snake of fable, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

"God don't want me to obey yer heathen laws!"  I can't wait for that defense to show up in Federal Court, and just try to wrap your mind around that convoluted logic,  Not that it would be the first time we've heard it and who could be surprised if we don't start to hear that toothless old Rebel Yell again.
Mississippi, Attorney General Jim Hood says gay marriage won't be legal in the state until the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals gives the go-ahead. A court of Appeals? And here we thought the Supreme Court had the final say.

Bobby Jindal tells his constituents:

"I think it is wrong for the federal government to force Christian individuals, businesses, pastors, churches to participate in wedding ceremonies that violate our sincerely held religious beliefs, We have to stand up and fight for religious liberty. That's where this fight is going,"

That "fight" is going precisely nowhere of course since the government isn't forcing any church or Pastor or Priest or anyone else to do anything, and a county clerk is free to resign if he doesn't like his job, just as any Muslim, Jew or Hindu can decide not to work for McDonalds if he won't serve pork or beef.   Anyway I suspect "Fightin' Bobby" would look real good in his Rebel grey uniform fightin' for the Ol' South. I think the irony could be measured on the Richter Scale.

Those of us of a certain vintage will remember when these God forsaken blowhards made the same arguments about interracial marriage and racial integration as well, and George Wallace based a presidential candidacy on undoing integration, " 'cause God don't want the races to mix."  Then as now, their miserable religious rage and sexual obsession  has come to nothing, leaving them to thrash around like a catfish on a sandbank . That pleases me no end and when they complain that it's a violation of  our "Freedom"  for the state not to be controlled by some state-sanctioned religious doctrine, I'm more than amused to watch these stinking turds of history slowly swirling down the porcelain bowl of justice. 

Do the Hokey Pokey

"Words no longer have meaning" says Justice Scalia and he should know, being a major contributor to the vocabulary of Right Wing babble.

Chief Justice Roberts' reasoning in yesterday's decision on the Affordible Care Act was "Argle-bargle." The decision against the Defense of Marriage Act was "Jiggery-pokery."  That's the power of words to hide the embarrassing truth and in Scalia's case, the truth is he's arguing the reverse of last years' Bargerly Argle.

"Three years ago, when the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality was challenged, Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Sam Alito read the law in such a way as to see all eligible consumers receiving subsidies, regardless of state or federal exchanges. In today’s dissent, these three had to read the law in the polar opposite way" writes Steve Benin. 

Contradictions like these say a lot. They say that the Court's most "conservative" spokesmen see the law in a rather situational way, That is to say it's right or wrong depending on who's doctrinal ox is being gored.  In this case maybe we can call it argumentum ad Obama, or "whatever he does is wrong."  If words have lost their meaning, which in a sense is true, perhaps it has much to do with the kind of rhetorical  wriggle-wragle or humpity-bumpidy defenders of  antiquated hoogely-boogely use to justify their dishonest HokeyPokey

E Pluribus Unum

It's hard to believe that a small group of misfits titling themselves the Council of Conservative Citizens has a fraction of a percent of the influence and followers old Father Coughlin once had.  I think his eventual discomfiture had much to do with the rise of the Nazi threat when Germany declared war on us in 1941 and made Fascism and anti-Sematism temporarily unfashionable, long after their program of extermination had begun.  Nothing on that scale has happened here to make our masses of uneducated, unenlightened yet firmly convinced Americans turn completely against the preachers of hate and intolerance and smug self-righteousness. Indeed such groups and individuals do prosper. It would be hard to believe however that such hate groups as the Council of Conservative Citizens represents any significant number of Americans. I was not aware of Kyle Rogers or his hate group until yesterday following all the reportage about the Charleston shooting. I'm aware however -- very aware of others fond of blaming all of our ills, real and imagined on some scapegoat.

Is Dylann Roof a scapegoat, a "self-radicalized lone wolf" or is he a disciple?  If not why do his words seem so familiar? and if not, why do we ignore the instigators?

We're not the same country as we were 75 years ago.  Not by a long shot, even though the meme is being spread by certain folks that nothing has changed, that we need to have a one sided "discussion," that the Civil Rights movement was a failure and worst of all that "white people" are telling themselves that there is no more racism. What better way to oppose positive change, to alienate needed allies - to engage in hate speech-lite!  A pretty damn good way to increase the animosity and bellicosity as well of course, and of course it's just not true.  But remember, organizations of all sorts, good and bad have less interest in solving the problems they are all about than we do,  No sir or madam, I do not believe racism has ended, but I do believe that government sanction and support of racist policies is far less and that justice and opportunity has improved. Agreement is hardly universal.  Activists and the media need to earn a living after all.

Still, those of us who leave the process of getting involved and informed to the news media are hardly aware of the hate groups out there, from Jew Watch to the Klan to the Aryan Nation to the Westboro Baptist Church to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are countless groups and media blowhards trying to make us afraid of and hate almost everyone, and they're not all composed of tattooed sociopaths with Swastikas and Confederate battle flags. Just listen to Donald Trump accuse Mexicans of being diseased criminals smuggling drugs,  Some are preachers and priests, others are members of respected political parties.  Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center have lists and descriptions of many of them.

The SCLC of course has it's vehement detractors and attractes as much hate as anyone, Most of its opposition are "conservative" Republicans, usually so quiet when tragedies like the Charleston Massacre occur and usually so able to inject their pet obsessions into any discussion and so end it: obsessions like claiming that people need to bring guns to church and that hate speech should have no limits in the name of freedom.

Look, we're never going to reform mankind.  We're never going to be a utopia and we're never going to make everyone happy, but one of the obstacles to making the American promise reality is ourselves; our hysteria, our insistence on protecting often misinformed opinion, on dehumanizing disagreement and upon not voting for less than perfect candidates.  We have to unite against hate speech and the people who do it. Shaout them down not shout at each other. We need to recognize who our enemies aren't, we need to examine our most angry and passionate thoughts and we need to recognize that: be we Mexican, Jewish, African American, Apache, Lakota, Atheist, Muslim -- be we gay or Greek or German or anything else, we're all in it together as Americans. Most of us, nearly all of us are not bigots, not haters and not shooters of the innocent. Those people are in retreat and we need to admit it.  Most of us aren't even Republicans, yet we let them get away with murder while we throw fits in the street. United We Stand. Seems simple, almost banal but it's on such things the future depends.

Just the Facts

"Three dead, Several injured during a rampage in Graz," reads the headline in the Austrian newspaper Die Krone. The driver of an SUV drove wildly through a crowd on a busy street in Graz, the hometown of  Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger;

skidding wildly back and forth on street and sidewalks.  When the driver finally stopped, he came at the police and bystanders with a knife.  "The exact reason for the rampage is unknown" says the paper.

Is there ever an exact reason?  Is reason a word with any application here at all?  No place, no population is free of such incidents and they only differ in the kinds of things one uses when one runs amok.  It might be a machete, a gun, an explosive vest, a vehicle, a bomb, a cooking implement or a canister of poison gas.  We've seen all of the above and more. How we define, how we describe, how we react says more about our society and says more about us than about the mass killers we produce.

Missing from the Newspaper account is the call for grieving and mourning and outrage, demands for more laws of an unspecified nature and any demand that it be called "terrorism."  No attempts to tie it to history and tradition and ethnicity or to make of it anything not immediately apparent. Neither the vehicle nor the knife were described as "military style"

How unlike America. Indeed the friend who posted this on Facebook asked Americans not to comment, to leave it to the Austrians and just let it be what it was.  I know what he means.

Why do you think they're using the "Confederate Battle flag," specifically?

Let's talk about the Confederate flag, shall we?

In the wake of the racist hate crime in Charleston, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley apparently felt that residents of the Palmetto State weren't ready to discuss removing the Confederate flag just yet.

You know, right now, to start having policy conversations with the people of South Carolina, I understand that's what ya'll want, my job is to heal the people of this state... There will be policy discussions and you will hear me come out and talk about it. But right now, I am not doing that to the people of my state.

Apparently, this sort of flag talk is very traumatizing in South Carolina.

Eternal debutante Lindsey Graham positively got the vapors at the thought.

If at the end of the day, it is time for the people of South Carolina to reconsider that decision, it would be fine with me, but this is part of who we are.

The flag represents to some people, a Civil War, and that was the symbol of one side. To others it is a racist symbol, and it has been used in a racist way. But the problems we have today in South Carolina and across the world are not because of a movie or because of symbols, it is because of what is in peoples' hearts.

How do you go back and reconstruct America? What do you do in terms of our history?

Well, here's the thing about history, Scarlett. You aren't required to celebrate it. Particularly when it's the history of a group of people who felt they were allowed to keep other people as livestock, because those other people happened to have a darker skin.

There are things we shouldn't be proud of. Slavery is one of them.

The "heritage" argument has been around for years, and it's always been a fairly thin argument. As Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention put it:

Some would say that the Confederate Battle Flag is simply about heritage, not about hate. Singer Brad Paisley sang that his wearing a Confederate flag on his shirt was just meant to say that he was a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. Comedian Stephen Colbert quipped, "Little known fact: Jefferson Davis - HUGE Skynyrd fan."

Or, to put it another way,

And it's not like this is a big secret, either. It's literally known around the world.

And yes, that is a fact.

So let's consider not clinging to your slave-owning past, and put away the symbols of racism. Maybe it's time to move on.

Fight Fire With Fire and Everyone Burns

Blacks are a "hated people" writes Jamil Smith in the New Republic Is there no safe place? Our Racist History Isn't Back to Haunt Us. It Never Left Us. Rebecca Traister wrote in the same issue.

 It's to be expected that those who see a senseless murder and respond with such passion about it will be in the headlines for a while and those who try to put it in another perspective will have a hard time avoiding criticism, but is there any safe place for anyone?  We have a history of senseless violence in America and as coverage of it around the world screams at us all day and all night we all know about it, we all fear it no matter how small the odds for any individual.   School children, Muslims, Jews, gay people get attacked, always by disturbed and probably demented and deluded young men -- it's a long list and it grows.  Random samples of the population have been involved in mass shootings in recent memory.  Movie theaters, restaurants, schools, office buildings and the streets.of Boston,  Deadly explosions, aircraft hijackings and shootings.  One might correctly think Americans are a hated people.

But he's right, of course, there are people who hate anyone with any African ancestors, like our current president -- and his election and re-election has released some hate gas from the muck, but the unspoken implication is that everyone hates black people:  The White People hate Black people, that is. That's not only untrue as election results prove, but it's a statement that is needlessly divisive and inflammatory.  It serves to heighten hatred and fear as well as it serves to sell magazines. It's a racist sentiment.

I do not doubt the sincerity of either writer and I do share the anger and a disgust with racism of all sorts, but it's very very hard in the atmosphere we have been given to breathe even to discuss the possibility that outrage is just another form of the same thing we're angry at -- that fighting bad doesn't make everything you do good or true or helpful. This isn't the old South, the murderer has zero chance of getting away with it.

Is this latest tragedy really the result of intransigent racism or the story of  another young man slipping into madness and choosing a "cause" that's a relic of the Old South?    I have heard people say you can't go to the movie theater any more, you can't send your kid to school any more and even that our laws provide an open season on black children.  Irrational and untrue and hyperbolically out of proportion.  Black people are still more likely to be shot by a black person. Domestic acts of terrorism have been quite random when it comes to the race of the victims.   Every time something happens we're told this changes everything, but the truth, the sad truth is that it doesn't.

Again did Dylann Roof  shoot up a church because we have a tradition of racism or because we have a tradition of letting the insane go unconfined?  Would one cause have been as good as another?  Was it really all about suicide?  He did claim he was going to kill himself after all.  We don't know and perhaps some don't want even to talk about it because they're on a mission of their own and don't want the passion play watered down or its passionate elements soothed. 

Black like Me

So Rachel Dolezal claimed African ancestry.  Doesn't seem like such a big deal to me and I wonder about how one reconciles the outrage with the claim that there is no such thing as race anyway, but all that seems petty today.  Today I identify with being black too and I feel militant and angry and outraged.  There nothing ambiguous about the circumstances, no lack of witnesses, no question about the innocence of the victims. The little bastard just walked into a church, waited through the service and opened fire on unarmed people, some begging him to relent.  He is said to have reloaded five times, killing nine people while talking about how "they" raped "our" women and were "taking over " the country.

Who gave him such ideas?  Watch Fox lately?  Listen to AM radio?  I think we know whose hands are bloody. I think we know who's been promoting anger, hate, irrationality and vicious stereotypes.

The perp is in custody.  I have no doubt there will be charges of  9 counts of Murder One. I have no doubt about the verdict, but I doubt I'm going to see the end of racist murder in my remaining time.  I mean racism, capital R Racism, not the nanosecond delay in recognizing a facial expression, not some secret fear of the black man in the baggy shorts and hoodie not a dislike of Al Sharpton. I'm talking about visceral hate, about vicious stereotypes, about the irresistible urge to kill people begging for their lives. I'm talking about the sort of things I thought we'd left behind in the 60's

How will we react?  Will we hear more about he war on Christianity on Fox?  Will we hear that every pastor carry openly?  Will we blame it on "military style" weapons?   I hear the grindstones beginning to whir.

I only hope the memory of the murdered isn't sullied by the kind of routine things we've been seeing elsewhere.  I hope we allow civilization to prevail, allow the justice system to hand out justice and I hope the people of Charleston don't share the same urge I have today to put a gun in my pocket and look suspiciously at  cars and houses and people with Confederate flags on them.

I'm an old, affluent white man who lives in the south but I don't care who says what about  my thoughts and my right to identify with another gender or race or species for that matter. Today I feel Black as Black can be, black as the barrel on a Remington 870, black as a Beretta M92, black like a 40 round magazine on an AK - black like anger, black like me..

Tales of Turf-N-Serf: The Low-Down on Trickle-Down

(Notes from the cephalopod:  This post is revised and updated from an earlier article to reflect current
macroeconomic data.  I intend to repost this article before election day and every election cycle thereafter.

As always, your comments, feedback and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.)

Supply-side macroeconomics, also known as trickle-down economics, has dominated our national debate for the better part of 35 years.  In theory, proponents argue, high taxes and burdensome regulations raise the cost of  business and drag down the economy.  Once relieved of these burdens,  more products and services at lower prices will attract consumers and unleash the engines of economic growth; hence the term ‘supply-side.’

No empirical evidence supports this view. In practice, consumers do not spend money unless they have discretionary cash in their pockets, and suppliers have no incentive to raise output when consumers have no money to spend. Furthermore, lower prices do not always reach consumers when businesses choose profit-taking over investment. In the real world, wealth does not trickle down from the top. Rather, the middle classes create wealth from within when they are prosperous and upwardly mobile.

In the pseudo-mathematics of supply-side theory -- where subtraction equals addition -- the privileges of a few justify the impoverishment of the many. The dark side of supply-side is confirmed in these trends of the past 30 years:

Median incomes are 12 percent lower than a generation ago.  The marginal propensity to save has vanished as middle-class families struggle with rising costs.  Debt has nearly doubled; bankruptcies are up twofold.  The economy has become an inverted pyramid where billionaires are taxed at lower marginal rates than teachers, and a privileged business class has won a disproportionate share of new wealth.

The result is an inequality bubble unseen since the Gilded Age. By all accounts, supply-side is the modern analogue of a medieval master-serf relationship; yet, it gives political cover to legislators and paid lackeys who argue the case on behalf of their wealthy benefactors.  Not a word on the evening news, but we see it everyday in our communities.

Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day

Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way

Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be

Oh, Monday, Monday, how could you leave and not take me?

For some reason, everyone in my neighborhood prefers to take off weekends and mow their lawns on Monday.  Why every Monday but not Tuesday, you ask?  Bizarre, I admit. Perhaps it just turns out that way.

Good lawnmowers make good neighbors.  We keep up appearances and keep peace in the neighborhood.  Witness this daily exchange every time neighbors meet at the mailbox:

“Good morning, Mr. Briggs. How are you today?”

“Mighty fine, Mr. Stratton. And yourself?”

We mow our lawns on Monday but not always in the same way.  Some of us cut grass in straight parallel lines, while others tend to meander or zigzag around our yards. Folks of different strokes are good as long as the grass is cut, and everyone knows:  Good lawnmowers make good neighbors.  We keep up appearances and keep peace in the neighborhood … until something strange happened one day.

Exactly how it happened or when it happened, no one knows for sure … but assuredly it happened.  Lampposts, Manhole Covers, and Utility Poles won the right to be treated as legal persons. Then they secured easements that granted them special rights and privileges.

You would think homeowners in the neighborhood would find common ground and unite in common cause.  Oh no!  The Lampposts -- in league with Manhole Covers and Utility Poles -- started a PR campaign that forewarned the homeowners on Magnolia Street to beware the residents of Hawthorn and Dogwood, who sneer at the folks on Elm and jeer the good citizens on Elder.

The Lampposts convinced the homeowners on Magnolia to love the neighborhood more than the neighbors who dwell on Hawthorn, Dogwood, Elm, or Elder – all of whom no longer look like, act like, or talk like real neighbors, they claim.

In short order, the Manhole Covers demanded a tax cut.  As Job Creators, they claimed, tax cuts for Manhole Covers means more jobs in the neighborhood (although no job that has ever fallen into an open manhole has ever been seen again).

Unfortunately, tax cuts for Manhole Covers has meant less revenue for our town. To close the budget gap, Utility Poles voted to cut services, lay off workers, and raise the consumption tax on lawnmowers. Cutting grass, they insist, no longer levels the playing field, and lawnmowers have no right to complain. Irate lawnmowers are waging class warfare on Lampposts and Manhole Covers, they explain.

Meanwhile, the Lampposts and Utility Poles say: “If senior citizens living on Elder lose their healthcare or pension benefits, they should consider themselves empowered.” To further humiliate the jobless, Manhole Covers claim unemployment benefits kill the incentive to work.

Legal but non-living persons now rule the neighborhood.  They never created a single job but reserve the right to trample on our bushes and shine flashlights into our bedroom windows at night.

Years ago, when a Lamppost burned out, a service truck came to the neighborhood and replaced a bulb. This year, the Lampposts say: “Buy your own bulb and replace it yourself.” Then they demand a bonus, a pay raise, and another tax cut. Last year, the Lampposts traded in their service truck for a Jaguar. This year, their Jaguar morphed into a Rolls Royce.

The situation has set homeowner against homeowner, and these non-living entities are ruining our community.  Today, you can hardly tell the difference between a Lamppost versus a real person anymore.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood mood has turned ugly.  Everywhere you see: Weeds taller than Utility Poles, crabgrass, hardship, and resentful neighbors no longer talking to neighbors. If there are lessons to be learned, forget the Lampposts, Manhole Covers, and Utility Poles.  Forget the polemics and dog whistles. How I yearn for the smell of fresh cut grass, E Pluribus Unum, and friendly neighbors exchanging friendly greetings at the mailbox again.

Monday morning couldn't guarantee

That Monday evening you’d still be here with me.

Reminder:  Tomorrow is Tuesday, the day we bring our trash to the curb.

Graham Crackers

I have to wonder about people who spend their days thinking about other people's sex lives and denouncing them for what usually is consensual and often loving behavior between consenting adults.  It not as though people like Franklin Graham are hormone-addled adolescents after all and it's not as though the world doesn't have other, more serious problems, like all those folks at present killing each other to please some god or other,  but like his father Billy, this extraordinarily rich man seems to have appointed himself, by virtue of some declared holiness,  as God's scourge and protector of mankind's morality. By morality, I mean the neo-Christian concept of it which has little to do with anything other than sex.   Excuse me, but that holiness is far more lacking in evidence than anything that ever spoke from a burning bush or whirlwind.  Rich men, camels and sewing implements, etc. You've heard it all before.

Unless money, scriptural inconsistencies notwithstanding,  is proof of God's approval, which would say something rather odd about God if true. Maybe he doesn't care if he, like Don Corleone, gets a 'taste.'  At any rate, at my last reckoning Frank made about a million a year working for "charity" and whether or not he is tax exempt by virtue of holiness, that's a good deal of money.  Having a barn with a large cross on his property might serve to make real estate taxes nugatory as well and cause God to let him off the eye of the needle thing, but I'm speculating and this isn't about money earned, but money that earns us all a good laugh at his expense.

Frank, you see, was terribly offended by a Wells Fargo commercial featuring a gay couple, so he moved his "ministry's" massive accounts to  BB&T, No word about his private accounts of course, lest God notice how rich he is. 

Can't fool God though, he knows and as with all good humor, the truth or the proof if you prefer is in the punch line.  BB&T, you see, and unbeknownst to our Bad Samaritan is the sponsor of the Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade, along with the chief sponsor of Miami Beach Gay Pride’s “Legacy Couples” program, which celebrates same-sex couples in “committed relationships of 10 years or longer.

The company hopes to “support the individuals and organizations that broaden our perspectives and strengthen the diverse fabric of our communities. That’s why BB&T is proud to be a part of this day of pride and celebration of the 2015 Legacy Couples.” 

As MSNBC tells us.  Is God having a laugh?  I certainly am. Is God's word somehow in teh punch line? Camels, needles and rich men, but maybe self-righteousness, rage and the grease of slick piety can let him squeeze through, even though he hasn't shown inclination to sell his clothes and give the money to the poor. And besides God was really only joking about rich men.  I mean it's really all about sex, isn't it?

 

The Transformation...

Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

 

 

Since Bruce Jenner's transformation into Caitlyn Jenner she has been in the news or talk shows daily. Like many folks i'm sure, I am, and have been totally indifferent to the chatter over her transformation. I admit to not understanding her decision, How could or would I? There is no desire in fact to understand her decision, it does not affect me or my loved ones in any way whatsoever. Neither does it affect broader society in any appreciable way whatsoever, unless you choose to let it. What is important in my view is to simply accept that Caitlyn made the decision that was right for her, for me that is the end of the story.

Apparently there are some who feel differently. Those who believe Caitlyn for some reason should not be accepted for who she is. Maybe it is because of loyalty to biblical verse, or perhaps out of fear that society will be forever changed. Or in the case of El Rushbo apparently it it political, an opportunity to once again to attempt to define the GOP as the intolerant judgmental party that Limbaugh prefers it to be.

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh thinks Republicans should reject Caitlyn Jenner, even if she agrees with them politically.  

Limbaugh said on his radio show Tuesday that liberals are trying to “redefine normalcy” in an effort to stigmatize conservatives and that conservatives shouldn’t agree to their terms by accepting Caitlyn Jenner as a woman.  

He likewise dismissed a conservative blog that wrote that Republicans should embrace Jenner as one of their own to seem more humane, saying that doing so would constitute falling into a liberal trap.  

Under this system, “conservatives and Republicans are the new weirdos, the new kooks,” the pundit said, “and that is part of the political objective here in normalizing all of this really marginal behavior. I mean, if less than 1 percent of the population is engaging in it, it’s marginalized behavior. It isn’t normal, no matter how you define it.  

“We should not be celebrating this, we should not be lionizing this, we should not be encouraging this. These people have a very serious problem, and they need treatment,” he said. “They need help, not encouragement.

Hey Rusbo, since when has simply accepting situations that harm no one encouraging the situation? Caitlyn's decision is a highly personal one (as it would be with anyone making the same decision) and affects only her and her family, a family that has as far as we know understands and has accepted her decision.

“This fits everything the media wants to do in terms of turning the culture upside down, redefining what ‘normal’ is, getting revenge against the majority for all of these decades of discrimination and mockery and disapproval and all these religious fanatics judging other people simply because of, quote, ‘who they love,’

It is impossible for those of us who know Caitlyn's transformation, while significant for her, is really just a minor news event in the broader picture of important issues. Via: Memeorandum Via: POLITICO