German Tea

"All Jews share a particular gene, Basques share a certain gene that sets them apart,"

said Thilo Sarrazin, a board member at The Bundesbank, Germany's central bank and a former finance minister of the city state of Berlin. It's not the first time he's put his shiny black Stiefel in his mouth or gave geneticists cause to groan. His book, Deutschland schafft sich ab, (Germany destroys itself) which just came out, contains many gems like:

"In every European country, due to their low participation in the labour market and high claim on state welfare benefits, Muslim migrants cost the state more than they generate in added economic value. In terms of culture and civilisation, their notions of society and values are a step backwards."

Sounds familiar to me, but perhaps that's only my special Jew gene talking. You know, the gene for remembering. Is he only stating the truth despite "political correctness" or is he just another one the Inglorious Basterds missed? Depends on how much tea you drink, I guess. Of course he doesn't exist in a vacuum and there are Germans who applaud his audacity, if you can call it that. There are even Thilo T-shirts available on line.

"I don't want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live in a mostly Muslim country where Turkish and Arabic are widely spoken, women wear headscarves and the day's rhythm is determined by the call of the muezzin."

I guess he won't be resettling in Detroit or the Borough of Queens, but even there, it's a long way from where we are to sullying the ethnic/religious purity of the Vaterland or good old USA either.

Germany of course was once a place where Jews once made great strides toward blending in socially, professionally and even religiously and we see where that got them. Its conceivable that Muslims might make the same effort to become echt Deutsch, but will they see it as being worth it with Schmutz Taschen ( if you'll pardon my calque) like Sarrazin roaming about the beer halls and board rooms? Perhaps certain Muslims of my acquaintance will re-examine their strongly held assertion that Germany wouldn't have done what they did when they did it, when the thought arises that they might be next. I doubt it though.

Of course it's not going to come to that. Germany learned a lesson we're still refusing even to do the homework for and Sarrazin will have to find other employment: politics, possibly. I wonder how good his English is.

Born Again Christian Says Tea Party is Un-Christian

Claims to the contrary, the Tea Party is not Christian. Every time I've said this over the last few years a "believer" would look at me with shock and horror. I could hear whispers of "blasphemy" as this cold, hard, withering stare washed over me. I was almost forced to look down to be sure the buttons on my blouse hadn't popped open to expose a bare mid-section. (More text follows)

Tea Party Jesus

Writing for the Texas Observer, born-again Christian Katherine Dobay explains why she believes the Tea Party is un-Christian and exposes the "hypocrisy of Tea Party members who claim they are defending Christianity -- a way of life they don't follow."

Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus exhort his followers to be nationalistic. All that Jesus said regarding the political state was that we must pay our taxes. Believers ought instead to be patriots of heaven, as Paul explains in Philippians 3: 20 "For our citizenship is in heaven..." Nor did Jesus instruct his followers to stem the tide of what the world considers progress by force . . . . For the end times we are told only to prepare for Jesus' return by keeping ourselves in fit spiritual condition. In fact, Jesus reserved his direst warnings for members of the church themselves, whom he warns against false teaching and ear-tickling;* even love of country can be an idol or a kind of heresy if placed before love of God and fellow man. (emphasis mine)

. . . Jesus clearly states that only those of his children who do his will, that is: feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked and visit prisoners and the sick, will receive the reward of eternal life. The good news we are told to spread in the Great Commission is not the gospel of economic doctrine or political philosophy. . . . Some of the fruits we can expect when we do God's will include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. That sure doesn't sound like the Tea Party rally to me! When we disobey God's will in favor of our own however, the results can be anger, greed, division, strife, gossip, ugly speech, hatefulness, and every manner of uncleanness.

We have seen some fruits of the Tea Party movement which many consider a dangerous faction exploiting tough economic times and the fears of suffering people to prosecute a political agenda. In seeking to control and manipulate a society they claim to be "saving", they are only succeeding in tearing it apart. Individuals in the Tea Party who claim to be Christian have a lot of explaining to do, for biblical teaching is full of calls to submit to secular authority, trust in God, and to pay taxes. "Pay everyone what he is owed: if you owe the tax collector, pay your taxes; if you owe the revenue collector, pay revenue; if you owe someone respect, pay him respect; if you owe someone honor, pay him honor" (see Romans 13: 1-7). No exceptions were allowed. Paul did not say to pay only as much as you feel is right. He did not say you could feel sorry for yourself to the point of open rebellion. He did not say submit only to those authorities of whom you approve, but said to give respect where it is due. The president of the United States is owed the respect of all Americans.

. . . Isn't it ironic that early Christians under pagan Roman rule flourished in holiness and martyrdom, yet today some Christians manage to feel persecuted while living in the greatest democracy in history and enjoying material blessings undreamed of by their distant kin? . . .
Now, I am the first to admit that I get very uncomfortable when anyone claims "Jesus said" for the same reason I am uncomfortable when someone says "Shakespeare meant." How do we know what someone said or meant based on writings that are centuries old, and in the case of the Bible, have eight to fifteen different versions? How do we know which writer's account is accurate?

For the most part, members of the Tea Party do not under any circumstances represent what I was taught and what I consider to be Christian. I was instructed in tolerance, forgiveness, love, peace and helping those less fortunate such as those who have experienced a major catastrophe - an earthquake, hurricane or tornado. Above all I was taught that God loves all his creations.

My grandmother, an unusually intelligent and independent southern woman, and a Methodist minister cousin of mine, always opined that people who wear their religion (and patriotism) on their sleeves are anything but. I believe it's called hypocrisy.

Having said that, I respect Dobay's opinion and applaud her courage to denounce the Tea Party's hypocrisy - especially since she lives in a little town of 7,000 in the Texas Hill Country. As we've seen all too often, people in that part of the world can get hurt if they don't think right.

*ear-ticking myths: "Once saved, always saved." "No sin or doctrinal heresy will keep you out of Heaven. Fornication is permissable." Remember that Newt.

Empathy, Community and the Nature of Evil

I was leaving a comment on a blog post by my friend Nance, Mature Landscaping, when I realized that my comment was getting a bit long. Thanks, Nance for the inspiration for my own post.


I don't recall when it was that I first realized that there was a lot of meanness in the world. I do know that by the time that I read The Diary of Anne Frank, that I suspected that she was wrong, and that people were not really good at heart. I think that I was 12 years old when I first read Anne's diary.

Sometime during my twenties, I became absolutely certain that people are not essentially good at heart. I don't think that I'm a cynic, just a realist, and it's a realism born of experience.

Neither do I believe that we are essentially evil. I think that we are neutral until we choose to act on the specifics of our experiences and/or circumstances. Life is all about choices yet far too many of us consistently make those choices based on misinformation, prejudicial beliefs, and self-interests.

I think that we confuse aging with maturity, and make the fallacious assumption that empathy is an innate quality that develops as we mature. As children, we are all motivated by self-interests, by instant gratification. Small children are adorable but they are also inadvertently cruel in their actions. If you don't believe me, spend some time with a group of two-year-olds. Each wants whatever he or she wants when they want it. There's crying, biting, a blow here and there, and a lot of run by toy snatching. As we age, left unchecked, those desires continue to predominate. Empathy has to be taught and it has to be taught by example.

Empathy--the ability to identify with others, to put yourself in their shoes--is the most powerful force for good in the world; sadly, it is the emotion most lacking in so many of us. We're taught not to hit and to share our toys, but most of those lessons are narrowly applied to our immediate circumstances and we never learn to adopt the empathy model as defining our world view.

Listen to the tea partiers, they are obsessed with making certain that undeserving people do not receive a free ride. Who's undeserving? Anyone whom they deem to be so. Of course, that translates into anyone who doesn't look like them, or who speaks with a foreign accent. A free ride includes basic necessities like medical care. One of the biggest objections to the Health Care Reform Act was the belief that illegal immigrants would receive free health care at taxpayers expense. Even the terminology indicates the distancing from any identification with the perceived "other." Typically, the language refers to illegal "aliens," not people but creatures from another planet, inherently different and dangerous.

The recent anti-immigrant law passed in Arizona is further progeny of the empathy deficit. Angry supporters of the law insist that it is fair, secure in the knowledge that they will not be the ones stopped and challenged as to their legal right to be here. In their minds, the fallout from this law is not their problem.

The slide from disinterest in the well being of others into outright evil is accelerated by the fear mongers that appear in every generation. The Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs who nurture the fear and feed the hate. These people make conscious choices to ramp things up, to stir up a frenzy among the masses. They are not unique; history is full of these depraved folks who for profit and egoism disseminate malicious lies and half-truths designed to fuel the anger of those who believe that they have an entitlement that separates them from those they have designated as other.

I don't believe that there is some essential goodness in humankind that will simply win out. I'm not a total pessimist; to the contrary, I think that we have the ability to teach people to make more humane, informed choices. However, it means that we have to continually reiterate the need for change. We can't simply live locally and hope that the global issues will resolve if we build a sense of local community. Humankind is interconnected and we are global, regardless of what we may want to be. I understand the desire to withdraw from the larger world and to focus on one's community, but we do not live in isolation. There are no walls that can be built that are high enough to keep out the rest of the troubled world. Our local community is global.

The will of the WASP

Rand Paul is not Ron Paul and I'm not flattering him by saying it. There is a difference between principle and bull-headed intransigence and Paul the younger seems as unclear about that as he is not quite up to the task of successfully debating Rachel Maddow about his distaste for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Asked whether he thought a restaurant had the right to refuse service to black customers, Paul commenced a rather evasive dance around the subject by trying to describe regulation as ownership.

"What about freedom of speech?" asked the less than candid Candidate. "Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other?'" Paul replied. "Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion."

Unfortunately, more than just being grammatically confused, he's wrong. He's equivocating and the debate is, of course, entirely about practical matters. Can we agree, for instance, that being black in a restaurant is fundamentally different than carrying a gun in a bar and if so, his analogy is defective and a fallacy of distraction? Certainly a speed limit is not Government ownership of my car, health regulations imposed on food producers aren't the equivalent of owning the family farm nor is forcing Woolworth to stop creating two Americas with their policies isn't Marxism.

Is the government of and by the people allowed,as the founding documents imply, to promote liberty for all, to promote peace and domestic tranquility by imposing limitations on individual behavior? Is he arguing for a government so impotent it must inevitably fall into feudalism and exploitation? Those are the questions he begs and the questions he avoids. Sorry Doctor, I think the balance between individual liberty and being a free country is a practical and necessary discussion.

Is it practical to have a society so far beyond the control of its members that justice becomes only a matter of the will of the strongest and the richest and most well connected -- the will of the WASP? No, unlimited individual license does not allow for a society at all, much less a free one.

Still it's all about the practical as opposed to the relentlessly repeated and self referential principle and we've all heard of or can easily come up with examples where freedom cannot be unlimited for many reasons; where behavior that needs to be restrained cannot be restrained by anyone other than Government. Is it preferable to allow my neighbors to forbid Baptists to live on my block and ignore my freedom or is it better to protect the minority against the majority, which is a common definition of democracy as distinguished from mob rule. No, if this is but a "philosophical" discussion it's because he doesn't want to address the inevitable questions Libertarians invite when they refuse to discuss its inherent limitations.

The traditional 'best government is least government' trope reduces to absurdity all by itself as quickly as does his argument that any restraints or obligations put on behavior or business practices constitute ownership and are an unnecessary stain on the pure and absolute freedom we've somehow decided is our birthright. Certainly although he assures us that he would never patronize a business that discriminates, he realizes that his sentiments are not universal. He realizes that he's giving license to anyone to debase any group he likes and to diminish their lives, their liberty and their pursuit of happiness. He realizes that such a nation as he dreams of would be fractured, Balkanized, a loose, weak, unstable confederation of hostile groups no more pleasant than a baboon troupe and with each of us at his neighbor's throat. He must realize that he's appealing to bigots, racists and sociopaths of no conscience -- and all in the name of principle and freedom.

So why is he debating as though the balance between too much and not enough wasn't worth discussing? As though that wasn't the real question? Perhaps its because he's pandering to an audience somewhat less rational than Ron Paul's: to an audience whipped into irrational fury by the basic requirements of civilization; too hungry for revenge against a maturing world and too angry and self centered to give a damn what he can do for his country.

No TEA for me please.

Rand Paul has things backwards and I don't mean his name. His win in the Kentucky Senate Republican Primary is not quite the same thing as being elected Senator and of course it's at least a few furlongs short of winning the Derby, or "taking back the Government" since, of course it wasn't taken from the voters in the first place. OK, there was Bush V. Gore, but you know what I mean.

Pretending that having been voted out of office was a breach of democracy seems to work for those at the Tea Party table, but then anything seems to work except reality and the reality is that we're not taxed enough already and we haven't had the tax increase they hope you believe we've had. Yes, we may be taxed unfairly and tax policy may have been written by people who can afford lobbyists and huge campaign donations, but beyond the amorphous anger, I haven't heard any proposals for a new tax code that could approach remedying the debt in any reasonable time much less as quickly as we paid off World War II.

They won't come up with one either unless they dispense with the repeatedly disproved fallacy that cutting taxes for the very rich will increase government revenues, spur investment in new businesses and boost employment and won't cause investment bubbles -- and that laissez faire capitalism doesn't lead to monopolies, corruption of government, fewer choices for consumers and less opportunities for small business.

In real terms most of us are paying less in Income tax than we used to -- less than at any time in my lifetime. The countries that have lower taxes are few and tend to have economies based on gambling, money laundering or revenues from things like the Panama Canal. The Republicans were ousted because of public anger and frustration with corporate control over people's lives, because of another apparently pointless and interminable war and the fear mongering that's eroded our freedom. I don't see where Mad Hatters like Rand Paul are addressing that and I do see that the Tea movement, if we can fall it that, is based on the hope that shattering the old form of government will magically cause freedom, justice and prosperity to break out and allow "the people" to control their own destiny. Sound like Marx to you? It does to me too. Does it sound like the same old: "don't trust them, but trust us even though we don't really have a plan other than to cloud your mind with anger?" It does to me too.

Ignorance & Arrogance: The American Legend

By Sheria

With all of the things in the news from oil spills to bombs in Times Square, I really thought that I was done writing about those tea party folks. However, it's like when you're a kid and can't help but pick at that scab on your knee. A friend posted this March video from a tea party protest of the health care reform bill, which prompted another friend to comment, "I'm so over America." This in turn prompted me to think about my own feelings about this country.

I've never been one for love of country. I know that this upsets a lot of people, heaven knows Michelle Obama got all kinds of flack for suggesting that she hadn't always been proud of this country. I just find it somewhat absurd to love things. I love my friends and my family, but I don't love my car or my table lamps. Besides, love of country leads to patriotism which segues into nationalism, which I think of as akin to patriotism on PCP.

I don't think that we are the worst country in the world but neither do I think that we are as great as we have deluded ourselves into believing. This is a country founded in blood, built on taking over the land and forcing the native population off of their land. We made laws to justify this usurpation of property (the Discovery Doctrine), declaring that the Indians had never owned the land but merely occupied it until it was discovered by Europeans. It was the Europeans,who cultivated the land and fenced it in, that created ownership. The Supreme Court case, Johnson v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. 543, L. Ed 681, 8 Wheat. 543 (1823), espousing this view is standard reading in every first year property law class. Then there's the whole slavery thing, building a country on the backs of a kidnapped and enslaved people. Emancipation of those slaves was followed by 100 years of Jim Crow--legalized, government sanctioned discrimination based on skin color that denied basic rights of citizenship to Americans having or perceived as having "one drop of black blood."  There's the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, robbing people of their property and their dignity. Reparations finally were paid for the property but how do you provide reparations for stripping people of their dignity? Another question to ponder is why there was no such internment for German Americans, also our enemy in WWII? Then there is the new Arizona state law, that legalizes racial profiling. Arizona is a single state but at least seven other states have already announced that they are considering following Arizona's lead.

The tea partiers are the culmination of generations of Americans reinforcing a belief in the superiority of America simply by virtue of its existence. There is really nothing surprising about the birth and growth of the tea party; it is the expected progeny of a country that feeds ignorance to its youth and revises history to fit our notions of who we think we are with no regard for the truth of the past.

I think that the biggest problem with the tea partiers is that they reflect the pervasive ignorance and arrogance that characterizes this country. As a whole, we can be a pretty narrow minded and provincial lot. We have no sense of history, we view ourselves as morally superior to all other nations. Because we choose not to remember the past, we don't understand our present. In our minds we have always been great, always on the side of right, always behaved in a noble fashion. Every other nation pales in comparison. America is a legend in its own mind.  Like most legends, there is some truth in ours but our delusions of grandeur are mostly the result of smoke and mirrors. Nonetheless, we cling to the legend and meet any attempt to disavow us of that legend with anger and self-righteous indignation.

Tea Party! An(other) Open Letter

Dear Tea Party Leaders,
Have I mentioned I'm not a big Tea Party fan? One of the top reasons is because too many folks who participate in these rallies don't really know what they want. There's a serious lack of direction. Case in point:*



Somehow, your movement has managed to attract Birthers, racists, libertarians, Republicans, anti-big government folks and folks who are just feed up in general (among others). That's a whole lot of (often) conflicting ideologies and goals. Which means there's an incredible lack of consistency in the Tea Party position beyond "the government is too big."

A few questions for you Tea Party Leaders (excluding Fox News, since I think they're full of sh*t anyway): How is the government too big? How exactly do you suggest slimming down the government? Which federal agencies should go? What/who would pick up the slack of those eliminated federal agencies? Would the slack be picked up at all? What is the Tea Party's view on health care reform in general (not just the recently passed bill)? What about immigration and/or immigration reform? Regarding taxes, how does one propose funding the military/unemployment/Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security etc. without some form of taxation? Or should those programs just fall by the wayside?

I normally describe myself as a moderate with liberal tendencies. That's only half true. I'm a liberal with both liberal and conservative tendencies. When election time rolls around, I do actually (attempt) to research the candidates and try to choose the candidate I think will be best for America. In the last election, I heard it from both sides, both my liberal and conservative friends, because I was seriously considering voting for Hilary Clinton (hand she won the primaries), Barack Obama and John McCain (up until he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate). Out of the last 3 presidential elections that I've been able to vote in, the candidate I hauled my ass to the post office/American Embassy to send my absentee ballot in for has won exactly once. One out of three is a pretty sh*tty record. When my chosen candidates lost, did I start shouting about how the tyrannical Commie Fascist  government was ruining America or talk about how my rights were being trampled on without representation? No. And why didn't I?

One, in my humble opinion no government in the history of America has been Communist or tyrannical in the true sense of the words, although some of my Southern brethren who are still fighting the damn Civil War might disagree. Sidenote: You lost. Deal. With. It. Please feel free, Tea Party Leaders, to disagree with me on the Communist/Fascist/tyrannical government point, providing evidence that does not include Fox News or anyone associated with Fox News with the exception of Shepard Smith, who I secretly kinda love.

And two, not liking your representation isn't the same thing as not having representation. You have representation. Not having representation looks something like this: being counted as 3/5th of a person while being denied the right to vote, hold property, marry or be treated like a human being. That's not having representation. So until the day the Obama administration officially repeals voting rights for all white Americans (I say this only because the Tea Party rallies seem to be overwhelming white, another point y'all might want to look into), I'm really going to need y'all to stop throwing out that whole "no representation" thing.

Oh and while we're on the topic, I keep reading all this stuff about how the Obama administration is stomping on the Constitution blah blah blah, generally from strict constructionist. Refer back to the 3/5th Compromise on why my black-descendant-of-slaves ass is not a strict constructionist. In my (over)educated opinion, part of the reason the Constitution has worked so well for so long is because it's a document which can grow and change with the times (see Article 5)....something the Framers ever so thoughtfully allowed for, even if they did drop the ball with the whole black-folks-as-chattel thing.

Since I'm leaving France in a week anyway and avoiding doing anything at all productive, I'm going to go ahead and address the Birthers element of the Tea Party movement's whole "Obama wasn't born in America" thing (despite the birth certificate) for sh*ts and giggles. Let's assume the Birthers have a point on this (they don't). Doesn't. F*cking. Matter. His mother was American. He gets citizenship through her anyway, in addition to being born in Hawaii (yes, it is consider part of these United States). And before any of your Birthers cite the "natural born citizen" clause, please note the Constitution doesn't really set down the criteria for "natural born citizen." Go ahead and check. I'll wait.

And breath. Rant. Over

Toodles,
American Black Chick in Europe

*P.S. To the young lady in the video who called Glenn Beck "very educational," I can see the American educational system greatly failed you. And for that I'm truly sorry. Beck could connect the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus to a Commie-Islamo-Fascist plot to overthrow America using that delightful chalkboard of his if he wanted to. The writer in me is impressed with his level of creativity. The non-batsh*t crazy person in me secretly weeps that folks believe him.

Cross-posted from American Black Chick in Europe.

Menace from the Right: The John Birch Society – Part 2

JBS Attacks on Religious Leaders, Churches and Synagogues

The Birchers led a vigorous campaign against the nation’s religious leaders to stir up dissension between clergy and their congregations. During this time period, and even now, members of the JBS were fundamentalists who opposed preaching a social gospel that made a relation between Biblical teachings and social justice. Thus, they were vehemently critical of the favored liberal social legislation of the National Council of Churches. (6)

In 1961 Amarillo, Texas, JBS area coordinator William L. Lee charged a local clergyman with being sympathetic to the Communist cause and accused the National Council of Churches of being infiltrated by Communists. A leading clergyman demanded that Lee keep quiet or hand over his evidence to the FBI. Not surprisingly, Lee had no proof but this did not stop Church members from demanding that their pastors sever ties with the Council or risk losing contributions to the collection baskets. (7)

This was just the beginning of a campaign of hate and fear that would reach every sector of Amarillo society, turning neighbor against neighbor and almost causing a mini-civil war. The Birchers used this same operating method in towns across the country. First, local religious leaders were attacked for belonging to the National Council of Churches and then the Council was accused of being a pawn of the Communist Party. Finally the whole ugly mess would spill over into other local institutions such as schools, local governments and politics.

Officially, Welch tried to keep his organization free from charges of anti-Semitism but he really didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it so his success was negligible at best.

He did warn members, “Communist plants and agents provocateurs would try to divert good Birchers into a misguided campaign against Jews in order to neutralize the work of the Society and its fight against the Communist conspiracy.” (8)

But the presence of anti-Semites within the organization was evident everywhere the Birchers had a chapter. The Society’s American Opinion Library offered books and pamphlets written by several people who were hostile toward Jews. One such book was Nesta Webster’s World Revolution – the Plot against Civilization which was her “attempt to portray a conspiratorial Jewish power lurking behind Communism.” (9)

National and Local Politics

Robert Welch and other leaders of the John Birch Society adamantly denied that their organization was politically motivated. But in 1964, they claimed they had at least a hundred delegates and alternates at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

After Barry Goldwater was nominated, the Birchers elbowed their way in and used the campaign as a means for advocating their own ideology. Society members joined the GOP and Republicans joined the JSB. This cozy relationship gave the Birchers considerable influence within the Republican Party but the honeymoon wouldn’t last. (10)

While local Republican groups had defended the JBS, national GOP leaders began to bitterly denounce it. William F. Buckley wrote a 5000 word article in his National Review denouncing Welch:

How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points . . . so far removed from common sense?

Goldwater, risking his own political career, followed up with a letter to the magazine:

Mr. Welch is only one man, and I do not believe his views, far removed from reality and common sense as they are, represent the feelings of most members of the John Birch Society. . . . Because of this, I believe the best thing Mr. Welch could do to serve the cause of anti-Communism in the United States would be to resign. . . . We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner.

These attacks may have diminished the impact of the Society but the JBS was not ready to roll over and die just yet.

The Society’s most successful campaigns really were not on the national level but on the soft underbelly of American where a minimum amount of pressure could often produce a maximum level of alarm. Some of this was described in Part 1 in the sections on churches and schools. But one of the most intriguing operations involved organizing boycotts through the use of cards, variously called Card Capers or Card Parties.

In 1962, a Miami chiropractor by the name of Jerome Harold organized The Committee to Warn of the Arrival of Communist Merchandise on the Local Business Scene. When Welch heard about it, he urged his members to get in touch with Harold.

A huge boycott spread from one city to another as JBS members organized local card parties of their own. Using postcards with a hammer and sickle printed on them, and the legend, “Always Buy Your Communist Products At ______.” The names of local retail stores which sold “red” merchandise would be filled in on the dotted line. (11)

Members took the cards and unobtrusively entered the marked stores – dropping them on counters and tucking them under merchandise. If a Bircher was caught red-handed, he would apologize, say it was all an accident and quietly leave the. But they always had another card with them – with the name of a lawyer just in case.

Society members urged local and state representatives and agencies to pass laws imposing prohibitive taxes on stores carrying merchandise from Eastern Europe. Some of the biggest names in America’s retail industry yielded under the pressure and Sears, Woolworth, Kresge, the Walgreen Company, and others, stopped carrying “red” goods.

In the end, the Birchers had to retreat as stores began refusing to give in to this well organized pressure. The climax came when a Los Angeles department store obtained a court injunction against further card distribution and sued the card committee and two of its leaders for four million dollars. The Birchers beat a hasty retreat and the card party ended. (12)

The American Opinion Library in Houston, identical to other Birch libraries across the country, served as an index to many of the Society’s activities at that time. One was able to purchase pamphlets which defended the JBS from its critics and analyzed the cause of the Los Angeles riots and the Civil Rights movement.

The Communists know that a divided people are easily conquered. They realize that if they can manipulate one American into fighting another American, their battle is won. One of the most important steps in creating a race war is to break down respect for law and order and portray the policeman as the enemy of the Negro. (13)

In one pamphlet was a picture of Martin Luther King at the Highlander Folk School, now The Highlander Research and Education Center) which was located in Monteagle, Tennessee at the time. Billboards with this picture were scattered along America’s highways from East to West.

Also found in the library were bumper stickers urging the United States to withdraw from the United Nations and declaring that “Disarmament is Surrender.” The inevitable pieces of jewelry were sold which had similar messages inscribed on them. And copies of Welch’s speeches were also available.

I didn’t write about the fluoridation issue in the original paper, but I can remember my family questioning Welch’s mental faculties every time there was a news report about his dire warnings that it was a Communist plot to poison the minds of Americans. Besides Rachel Maddow’s now famous video, there is this very good report here which quotes from the March 1960 JBS Bulletin.

6. Janson, The Far Right, p. 41.
7. Forster and Epstein, Danger on the Right, p. 3-4.
8. Ibid., p. 27.
9. Forster and Epstein, The John Birch Society, p. 33.
10. Ibid., p. 70.
11. Forster and Epstein, Danger on the Right, p. 24.
12. Ibid., p. 24-26.
13. Constructive Action Committee, Civil Riots U.S.A. (1965).

Menace from the Right: The John Birch Society - Part 1

This series of articles is based on a research paper I wrote in 1964 during the heyday of the John Birch Society (JBS). I dug it up and dusted it off to see what, if any, resemblances there might be between it and the modern day Tea Party (TP).

Enough similarities exist to make the two organizations appear to be mirror images of one another but sometimes one reflection is a little distorted or a little off. Much depends on the silver backing – or the foundation.

The JBS was founded at the end of 1958 when candy manufacturer Robert Welch secretly gathered together 11 unidentified men in Indianapolis.* For two days they listened to Welch explain his deep-seated belief that the Communists were infiltrating all segments of the United States, threatening to destroy our schools, our churches, our government, and virtually, our entire way of life.

In time, most Americans would come to believe that such threats did not come from the Communists but from the very organization that was supposed to be championing the cause of freedom.

JBS Attacks on the Government

Robert Welch was firmly convinced that the U. S. government had been corrupted and infiltrated by Communist agents. He argued that they dominated the presidency, the legislative branches and the U. S. Supreme Court.

He began writting a letter in 1954 which nine years and 305 pages later was turned into a book called The Politician. Welch claimed the Communists captured the presidency in three stages beginning with Franklin Roosevelt and continuing on through the Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower administrations.

R. B. Cooney, in his article, “John Birchers On the March – the Politics of Fear,” quoted the following passages which had been recorded in the Congressional Record :

In my opinion, the chances are very strong that Milton Eisenhower is actually Dwight Eisenhower’s superior and boss within the Communist Party . . . .

I personally believe (John Foster) Dulles to be a Communist agent who has had one clearly defined role to play: namely, always to say the right things and to always do the wrong ones. (1)

Welch wrote in another private letter that quickly became public, “the Communists have one of their own actually in the Presidency - Eisenhower. That word is ‘treason.” He went on to accuse the president of being "a dedicated conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy."

Conservative writer William F. Buckley, an early friend and admirer of Welch, regarded his accusations against Eisenhower as "paranoid and idiotic libels" and attempted unsuccessfully to purge Welch from the JBS.

At Houston’s American Opinion Library, the JBS store and reading room, I purchased a postcard inscribed, “Save Our Republic – Impeach Earl Warren.” On the back it read:

Chief Justice Warren has taken the lead in both the decisions and the attitudes of the Supreme Court, aimed at doing away with those safeguards of law which maintain this nation as a constitutional republic, and at converting it into a democracy – in which all individual rights would be completely subject to the whims and views of demagogues temporarily in power. The logical and traditional redress in our governmental system for such violations of the oath of office is impeachment.

JBS Attacks on Schools
Education was the field in which the JBS was most active and where they had the greatest impact. Welch continuously urged members to join PTA groups and school boards. If they could subvert the educational system, they would win a major battle against their war on Communism.

In  Amarillo, Texas – a town known for its far right groups – the JBS began a campaign to rid the school libraries of reading materials they deemed unfit. Such books as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Oliver La Farge’s Laughing Boy, Mackinley Kantor’s Andersonville, and A. B. Guthrie’s The Way West were forced from the shelves.

George Orwell’s 1984 was also purged – rather ironical since it is generally regarded as a critique of life under Communism. (2) Even more interesting was the fact that the Houston American Opinion Library carried copies of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Even high school students were encouraged to rat on their teachers. Instructors who had been idolized for years were suddenly disloyal and treasonous. It wasn’t long before paranoid parents jumped on the bandwagon. Neighbors who used to be bridge partners began playingWar. (3)

At a Wichita, Kansas high school, JBS members tried, but failed, to have courses altered and  the teachers fired. Again students were urged to report anything their teachers said that, in their opinions, smacked of Communist propaganda. (4)

Some University of Wichita faculty members were accused of being traitors and attempts were made to have them fired. According to an assistant economics professor at the time, the charges of treason made the faculty insecure enough that they were afraid to teach anything that dealt with Communist theory in politics and economics. (5)

By obtaining control of local PTA and school board groups, Welch believed the Society would be able to influence the choice of courses, teachers and textbooks. If they succeeded, social science courses would be altered to such an extent that history and government as most of the country knows it would be unrecognizable.

* Since this paper was written,the names of the founding members have become known.
1. R. B. Cooney, “John Birchers On the March – the Politics of Fear,” American Federalist, v. 68, (June, 1961), p. 13.
2. Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein, Danger on the Right, 1966, p.4.
3. Ibid.
4. Donald Janson, The Far Right, 1963, p. 169.
5. Ibid. p. 169-170.

DON BLANKENSHIP: “MINE! UP YOURS! DROP DEAD!”

Considered the worst mining disaster in 25 years, the death toll in Tuesday’s mine explosion near Whitesville West Virginia has reached 25 fatalities. Thus far, seven bodies have been identified and 18 remain underground. Four persons are still missing.

According to a spokesperson for Massey Energy, the owner of the mine, the rescue mission has been suspended because rising levels of methane gas made further rescue and recovery operations unsafe. The mission will continue after boreholes are drilled to vent the mine of combustible gas.

One deceased miner, Benny Willingham, age 62, was only five weeks away from retirement, according to his sister-in-law, Sheila Prillaman, who said family members only learned of Willingham’s death from a list posted by the company.  Prillaman is angry because no company representative contacted the family in person to inform them of their loss.

Don Blankenship, the Chairman and CEO of Massey Energy, confirmed the casualty count with this statement (source):

”Our top priority is the safety of our miners and the well-being of their families.”

For a nation so jaded by corporate spin and the lack of investigative journalism, the statement renders itself invisible to scrutiny. Too bad it takes a tragedy of this magnitude to shed light on an Inconvenient Truth: Massey Energy, the nation’s sixth largest mining concern, is a repeat offender, a notorious scofflaw, and now … mass murderer.

According to federal records, Massey Energy has amassed over 3,000 safety violations (including 57 in the last month alone) for failing to develop and follow a safety plan. Data kept by the Mine Safety and Health Administration show three fatalities at the Upper Big Branch mine in the past 12 years. Last year, Massey paid a record $4.2 million in criminal and civil fines for “willfully violating mandatory safety standards” that led to the deaths of two miners (source).

Mining operators such as Massey Energy thwart new safety rules by overloading the regulatory system with appeals that clog the system and bog down enforcement. Operators employ this tactic to avoid paying fines, evade scrutiny, and stop regulators from shutting down mines for violations that put workers’ lives in risk. To date, the backlog of outstanding appeals has risen to 16,000 cases (source).

Blankenship is the epitome of a corrupt and morally bankrupt plutocrat. As the highest paid coal executive in the land, he has used his fortune to corrupt the system, bust unions, buy politicians, and influence justice. He is infamous for spending $3.5 million to defeat the election of a West Virginia Supreme Court Judge in order to overturn a $50 million fraud verdict against his company (source). These days, it has never been easier for a crook like Blankenship to dodge charges of graft.

How does the energy industry literally get away with murder? Companies such as Massey Energy and Koch Industries spend millions of dollars each year to confound the issues and distract the public by enlisting unwitting citizens to serve as their proxies. Here is Don Blankenship inviting the public to a Labor Day Tea Party event called Friends of America Rally:



Environmental extremists? Corporate America? Destroying your jobs?  It is an audacious deception worthy of Grima Wormtongue. Certainly we understand how free markets, union busting, and lower wages put more money in the pockets of Don Blankenship and David Koch. How does the gutting of occupational safety regulations benefit American workers? How do higher allowable levels of arsenic in public drinking water benefit growing children? How does toxic wash from mountaintop removal benefit downstream communities? Our news media covers the Tea Party rabble while our most pressing questions go unanswered.

At the 1992 Republican Convention, Vice President Dan Quayle attacked the concept of progressive taxation with this question: “Why should the best people be punished?” His remark affords us a glimpse into a mindset where the richest people are considered “the best people” at the pinnacle of an economic, social, and moral order (source) while the rest of us are mere serfs and vassals for their self-enrichment. What profits the plutocracy is defined as “freedom;” what benefits middle-class America is derisively termed ‘socialism.’

Freedom's just another word

Somehow I've never been able to understand why preventing enormous and hugely profitable insurance corporations from dropping you because you kid was born with a heart defect or not covering your leukemia treatments because you forgot to tell them you had acne in high school makes us no longer a free country -- or perhaps only a "mostly free" country according to the Heritage Foundation.

But more confusing and more difficult to reconcile than quantum mechanics and relativity is the idea that allowing warrantless wiretaps and other unconstitutional government abuses don't have the same effect. Seems that President Ford was comfortable with giving the FBI discretion on whether or not to seek a warrant for probable cause for wiretapping on the advice of his Attorney General William B. Saxbe. That's a long time before the Patriot act that cemented the "almost free" condition into law - a law that the Democrats haven't yet repudiated. Silly of me that this might have interfered with my freedom nearly as much as an extra 2% on what I might make over a net $375,000. Freedom's just another word for profit.

Is it the threat to monopolistic and feudalistic aberrations of free-market Capitalism that make us almost free or is it things like restrictions on civil rights? I think the answer is obvious. Freedom isn't at stake when Exxon-Mobil payed less in income tax last year than a minimum wage worker did, but the minimum wage itself is a threat to freedom and a harbinger of a Communist takeover. But don't ask me to explain. Ask some other millionaire from the kind of "think-tank" funded by the oil cartel.

Because that's exactly who is telling us what freedom means. That's who would rather you didn't think of it in terms of freedom from want, fear, privation - or the FBI rummaging through your life looking for anything they like. There's little profit in privacy -- in your privacy anyway. There is big profit in usury so our freedom hasn't suffered by finance companies that can charge 200% and ask for more, but it's damn near communist tyranny to ask Exxon to pay what my gardener pays.

No, Obama is a tyrant and he's made us less free, not for the things he's done or hasn't done to force responsibility on Wall Street, not for failing to undo constitutional infractions or abuses of executive power, not for actually give most of us a tax cut, but for giving some of the protection we've been asking for against financial ruin, against having to choose between feeding our kids or dying of a curable disease.

I'm glad we have people like the Heritage Foundation around to explain things like freedom to us. We might have gone on thinking that being able to vote, to use public facilities, to be served in restaurants and hotels, to buy property wherever we can afford it, to get a job if we're not white or protestant or male or young or to send our kids to school had something to do with being free -- all those things that such grand sounding patriotic spokesmen like the Heritage foundation assure us are nothing of the sort. Without them we might have forgotten how free we were years ago when we had slavery, segregation, race laws, male suffrage, restricted housing, poll taxes and lynching parties. I'm glad they continue to keep up the good fight.

Tea Party Express...to the Moon

Despite a smudge on my camera lens (it was impossible to see on the LCD screen in broad afternoon sunlight), I'm very proud of this video. The Tea Party Express is either a brilliant piece of surrealist theatre or a massive exercise in cognitive dissonance. Enjoy.

Tennessee Tea

Some people might give them credit for never giving up and of course, like congenital stupidity and genital herpes, the Republicans never really go away.

Yesterday's e-mail viral outbreak flared up with another version of a letter excoriating Barack Obama for such inexcusable acts of treason as not placing a flower at the World Trade Center crater with a sensitive enough wrist action and of course referencing that old groaner, the photo of him singing without his hand on his heart. Both these things and more, insisted the weeping and wailing writer are proof of his Christian hating Islamic faith and his mission to destroy all that is held dear by the pretend conservatives who hang upside down in belfries and eat bugs.

Not that such people actually write these things. Virtually all of the phony celebrity letters libeling and threatening Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton and the Obama family are written by the same, easily recognizable hand, although the attributions change from day to day. The faux outrage and breast beating pretend patriotism are always the same.

The letter I got was attributed to Sherry Hackett, the wife of the famous and raunchy comedian although she didn't write it nor likely did the others it's been "from" in the last 6 months. The person who forwarded it to me was crying for our country or so she says. Actually I think she welcomes any scurrilous and seditious screed that oozes from the Republican cesspool. I think it just hasn't sunk in that far from shoving things down America's throat, democracy has shoved change down theirs.

The desperation seems to call for deliberate denialism and cultivated delusion. If Obama takes off his shoes, that means he's a Muslim and not a Christian was a sentiment presented by a small townTennessee Tea Party organizer along with a picture of a shoeless president. Frankly I wish he were, but even so, it's a statement that could only be applauded by people not likely to be found at a Mensa meeting unless they're simply dishonest exploiters of the traditionally stupid.

For a group whose meetings sometimes draw dozens of people, God willin' and the creek don't rise, it can't be hard to avoid the leaders knowing that it's a tiny minority cult representing a fringe Right element, yet their solution to the problems posed by an electorate that emphatically rejected the Right in the last election is to go further right. The Washington Post quoted David Nance, the founder of the Gibson County Patriots, in Jackson, Tenn as saying

"This effort is to try to get the Republican Party to try to give us more conservative candidates"

and he believes it's working, yet his choice of Stephen Fincher, gospel singer and cotton farmer from Frog Jump, Tennessee for the State's 8th Congressional District seems to have little to do with stated Tea Party goals of reducing the cost of government and eliminating "entitlements" what with Fincher raking in a cool, conservative $200,000.00 per annum in farm subsidies and being financed by others riding the same gravy train. He's pulled down over $2.5 million since 1995. Of course that' just all tea in the harbor and doesn't seem to matter as much as the president with his shoes off or the stories about flag pins and tardy salutes, a too small flag on his campaign jet and the laying down of a flower at the WTC with insufficient wrist action as discussed in the letter Sherry Hackett didn't write.

The shame of it all really is that Barack Obama, with his continuing support of some unpopular Republican policies may be too conservative for Liberals and perhaps even for some centrists while this collection of Beverly Hillbillies wants to tell us he's a Muslim version of Pol Pot while selling a faux populist version of Corporatism.

It's more of a shame we don't seem to have any genuine conservative opinion worth reading these days, and of course if we'd had it earlier, we might not have needed it so badly now.

The rage is not about health care

President Obama could have proposed a tax rebate of $10,000 and the conservatives still would have gone stark raving mad. When the Health Care Bill passed Republicans and Tea Partiers turned into a raging sea of childishness, insanity, ugliness and stupidity.

Representative John Boehner went apoplectic chanting "Hell no, you can't." Frank Rich, in a New York Times Op-ed piece, The Rage Is Not About Health Care, suggests Boehner "had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons."
In a debate with David Ploffe on ABC's "This Week," Karl Rove frothed at the mouth and went on a non-stop tirade. Such antics have become less funny and less entertaining.

Republicans have shouted "you lie" and "baby killer" in House chambers, violating every rule of decency and decorum. To steal a phrase from Joe McCarthy, Republican Congressional representatives have become Tea Party "fellow travelers."

For over a year Tea Party protests have attracted increasingly large crowds. They have grown louder, uglier, more threatening and more violent as time has passed. They have shouted racial and homophobic slurs at respected members of Congress and have thrown bricks through their offices - similar to a mini-Kristallnacht in 1938 Germany.

According to Rich, there was heated reaction when Social Security was passed in 1935 and Medicare thirty years later. "When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association."

But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill...you have to look to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.... it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer...

The election of a black president and a female House speaker, the appointment of a Latino to the Supreme Court, and a gay Congressional committee chairman "would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play."

In this writer's opinion, the Tea Partiers - just like the Birchers, the patriot groups, and other extremist groups have a serious case of paranoia. And racism - despite social scientists' claims to the contrary. Maybe they should have read the liberal blogs in the early days - especially those written by southerners.

The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935.By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist (Richard) Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.

Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.

In my very humble opinion the Tea Partiers and Beck and Co. are one thin hair away from being seditious. If we were a police state, as that monumental wonder Beck proclaims, everyone of those thugs would be in jail.

DUNCE SCOTUS

It seems the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has started her own Tea Party PAC, according to this report in the Los Angeles Times:

"I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Neb., who just may have the chance to preserve liberty along with you and other people like you," she said at a recent panel discussion with tea party leaders in Washington. Thomas went on to count herself among those energized into action by President Obama's "hard-left agenda."

But Thomas is no ordinary activist.

She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court.

In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative "core principles," she said.

The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources -- including corporations -- as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.

Read the rest of the story here.