Moving addresses

Wading through all the bullshit from the talking heads and all the hypocrisy from the elected leaders can be a bit overwhelming, not in part because there’s so much of it and it continues to spew on a daily basis. (Besides, if you really believe Obama is an African-born Muslim who’s secretly working to dismantle America and that Sarah Palin is a brilliant natural leader whose enemies in the media conspire to keep her political career down, I can’t help you.  Choke on that bullshit ’til the day you die.)

With this in mind, I’ve decided to re-focus my blogging efforts on a more specific form of outrage: the fact that the newly elected Republican congress is trying to dismantle every sort of legislation that actually benefits people who aren’t wealthy and/or (usually and) white and male.

I’ll be blogging these efforts over at Republican Hate Machine, where each day I will have a new post where I look at an item on the Republican agenda and explain whom they must hate to want to push this through.  I’ve decided to keep it as simple as possible, because simple honesty is hard to spin any other way.  Because I don’t have room, or patience, for Republican apologists who say (I’m paraphrasing) “Sure, the entire Republican agenda is based on driving everyone into wage-slave poverty except the very elite, but check out this one thing this one Democrat did one time that all the Republican punditry blew out of proportion!  It’s totally the exact moral equivalent!”

Anyway, spread the word about my new blog, please.  Help me get some views.  Maybe someday we’ll reach the common man and he’ll realize he’s been voting for people who hate him and want him to remain poor and ignorant and his children to grow up the same.

Today’s roundup in Republican Corruption

First, Clarence Thomas fails to disclose that his tea-partying wife has a cushy job with a Republican think tank.

Federal judges and justices are required by law to disclose their spouse’s income — thus preventing persons who wish to influence the judge or justice from funneling money to them through their husband or wife.

This revelation that Justice Thomas failed to comply with his disclosure obligations comes as he is caught up in another ethics scandal regarding his participation in fundraisers for far-right political groups.

A Supreme Court justice lending a hand to a political fundraising event would be a clear violation of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, if it wasn’t for the fact that the nine justices have exempted themselves from much of the ethical rules governing all other federal judges.

And in a move that can only be described as “shameless, greedy opportunism”, former Republican Rep. Bob Barr has signed on to be former Haitian dictator Maurice “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s “international voice”.

One has to wonder how Barr — who ran for president in 2008 to “deliver a refreshing message of liberty” — can reconcile his supposed right-libertarian beliefs with being on the payroll of a notorious autocrat who shut down elections and the free press and tortured nonviolent dissidents.

The Absurd Sensationalism of Local News

Fox 26 just ran a teaser for tonight’s news: “How often do your kids text? Better check that phone bill, parents, because we’ll show you how the number of texts could mean they’re using drugs, alcohol, or engaging in sexual conduct!”

First of all, what a ridiculous attempt to grab ratings.  (And do those attempts even help in any appreciable manner above just telling the news?  We live in Houston!  There’s got to be enough real news in a day to fill half an hour!)

Second of all, all this news really does is give paranoid parents an excuse to spy on their children.  And nothing solidifies the parent-child relationship like a strong message of “I don’t trust or respect you.”

Third of all, I’m no expert, but I’m betting the number of texts a typical teen sends correlates to the amount of time they communicate with their friends and/or the number of friends they have.  And I’m pretty sure drinking, getting high, and messing around are among the most popular social activities around– things teens have done since time immemorial.  How is this in any way news?

Could someone…

please tell the Christians that want to burn Qu’rans tomorrow that the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have done to you,” was Jesus’ most important commandment, and that they probably would get pissed off if people burned Bibles, so why are they trying to piss other people off?

And while you’re at it, would you please tell the violent Islamic fundamentalists that Christianity had their share of violent fundamentalists, too– coincidentally enough, about 1400 years into the religion’s history– and they ruled everything, and there was a reason it was called the Dark Ages?

Has everyone forgotten this whole love one another shit already? We’re so far away from it that don’t kill people for no good reason is all we’re hoping to achieve anymore.

We live in a world

Where letting the tax cuts that helped bankrupt our economy expire– an expiration that is supported by the public at large– is somehow controversial among our elected representatives;

Where candidates for elected office seem to think civil rights should be left in the hands of the local bigots;

Where yahoo fundamentalist preachers are trying to ignite a holy war, presumably in hopes that we’ll all kill each other and Jesus will save the survivors;

Where Republicans are so desperate to win at any cost that they recruit people off the street to run for office and siphon votes from Democrats;

and it makes me sick.

The right wing and name calling

Cliffs notes: It’s what they do.

Proposition 8 in California being struck down as unconstitutional is a great example for this, because already the right wing is trying to smear the judge who made the ruling as a “judicial activist” who holds a “liberal court”, which is simply not true.

You can see this pattern every time the Republicans oppose something: Health reform is “Obamacare”.  Obama himself is a “socialist” or a “Marxist” or “Hitler”.  Anyone who supports a social program is a “bleeding-heart liberal” (I guess that’s supposed to be a bad thing?)  It’s Rush Limbaugh’s stock in trade (“feminazis”, “environmentalist wackos”, just to name two).

The Republicans never address the merits of the decisions made or the successes or failures thereof.  They just call people names.

You know why people call other people names?  It’s because they can’t win the argument on its own merits.  It’s because they can’t think of anything better to respond with.  It’s a grade-school tactic.

This country needs to grow up if we’re going to fix the real problems facing us.

Republicans are apparently running on a strategy of “less (for you) is more (for us)”

In an idea borne of the Tea Party, some Republican congressmen— and, I believe, quite a few candidates for smaller offices– are suggesting a repeal of the 14th amendment, basically to destroy the idea of a natural born citizen in order to stem immigration, an idea which is obviously racist and obviously ignores the fact that every single one of us here immigrated at some point or another. This would shred civil rights and equality.  Even Alan Keyes thinks this is crazy. Of course, the party can’t actually decide if it’s for or against the 14th amendment. Flip-floppers.

On top of people wanting to take away civil rights and give more power to the government by allowing it to determine citizenship, we have Republicans who are suing the government in an attempt to have health reform overturned. Apparently, they think the risk most Americans ran of losing or being denied health insurance for specious reasons, and the ruination of families who can’t afford health care, and the deaths of people simply because they cannot afford health care, is a good thing.

So your strategy for the midterms is to take away health care and civil rights? I’m amazed anyone votes for them at all.  “In tough times, there aren’t many things people can count on from their government.  We want to take away those things.”

The difference between Glenn Beck and a true patriot

“Can you remember a time, ever, where there were so many Americans, including the president, have labeled America the bad guy?”

Beck doesn’t understand that being critical of America is not the same as labeling it “the bad guy”– but this is reflective of Beck’s perception that America is “the good guy” no matter what happens.  What, are we supposed to endlessly praise America no matter what it does, look to it as some superhero we can invoke to win an argument? Are we five years old?

Self-examination and self-awareness are crucial parts of development for any human being, and a governing body is no different. Those who are questioning America’s actions are coming to that same self-awareness about their country and bringing it to government– an honest assessment of its behavior and actions, their consequences, and what we can do from here to improve and achieve our goals as a country.  That’s true patriotism.

Beck’s kind is just repetitive, ignorant flag-waving.  Black-or-white is for chess and Othello.

That gosh-darn liberal media is at it again

The New York Times breaks out the old “Obama isn’t bringing about the bipartisanship he promised.”

As if it’s Obama’s fault that the Republicans absolutely, utterly refuse to work with him on anything.  Isn’t that the real story? Where’s the NYT piece about how Republicans are purposely obstructing progress, purposely stalling the president’s appointments (something which, by the way, the right wing media would ABSOLUTELY RAISE HELL ABOUT if the Democrats tried it with Baby Bush), are meeting with banking and energy lobbyists to fight against reform, and how their fringe media resorts to angry yelling, lies, and dirty tricks?  Or would it be too “liberal” to report the truth of how the right wing behaves?

Look, here’s some truth for you to consider in the next election. One party is– if by fits and starts and not nearly to the degree change is needed– trying to get things done to fix the mess of problems we have in this country.  The other is blatantly and purposely obstructing change and progress in hopes that things will fail so they can pick up seats in the election. You give me the choice between the party that’s trying at least to do even a tiny bit of good, and the one that would purposely send us on a highway to hell for their own political gain and power, and I know which way I’m voting, every time.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007160011

Once again, the satirists tell the truth the best

From the Onion:

Area Man Passionate Defender of What He Imagines Constitution to Be

“Men like Madison and Jefferson were moved by the ideals of Christianity, and wanted the United States to reflect those values as a Christian nation,” continued Mortensen, referring to the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, considered by many historians to be an atheist, and Thomas Jefferson, an Enlightenment-era thinker who rejected the divinity of Christ and was in France at the time the document was written. “The words on the page speak for themselves.”

According to sources who have read the nation’s charter, the U.S. Constitution and its 27 amendments do not contain the word “God” or “Christ.”

Just one example of what’s really a sort of a simple idea but pretty well done, and one that got me thinking.

One of the biggest, most basic struggles of human behavior is those who seek to control it vs. those who seek freedom.  The people who seek to control human behavior always find some authority to claim validates their beliefs about how other people should behave, even when (as in the quote I pulled) it clearly doesn’t.  It’s a basic struggle for the freedom to follow your own direction rather than someone else’s.

The side of oppression seeks submission to the authority and seeks to make  everyone to follow their rules about life.  To restrict human behavior to someone else’s idea of it.  Submit.  Follow someone else’s will. That is the basic message underneath all human oppression.

They get angry when they are questioned.  They become arrogant and impudent that you do not submit to their obviousness.  They react angrily.

The king executes the servant who would dare question him.  The KKK burns crosses and runs lynch mobs over their basic refusal to recognize others’ humanity.  The tea partiers shout down criticisms and people, shouting louder and louder, turning up the volume on their insular network of shouting media (from Rush Limbaugh to Glenn Beck and their imitators to pretty much everything on Fox News, it’s not too hard to get yourself hooked up to a stream of people yelling bullshit 24/7).

I’ve been to a tea party rally. The hate, anger, and fear in the air is palpable.  It’s frightening.  These people are angry, and they don’t know why.  They know what they’ve been told, but they’ve been lied to their whole lives, lied to by people who stand to gain by keeping them ignorant and angry– and they don’t recognize the truth for what it is.

The speakers speak in this vague string of ideas that doesn’t connect, using more word association than logic, trying to get people’s low-level emotional responses stirred up, preying on basic instincts and the fear response.

And it works on these people, who aren’t aware that they’re being manipulated, because they have been every single day of their lives, and they’ve never seen the world another way.  And I feel it’s our role in this world to bring the truth to light in the important matters.  It will take time, but if nobody stands up for the truth, the world falls into the hands of liars rather easily.

People can change the world.  It happens all the time.  It just takes commitment and action.

Oh, and one more thing: so what if we’re not strict constitutionalists?  The constitution was written over 230 years ago.  Do you mean to tell me we haven’t come up with any good ideas since then?