To the folks who are upset with the 'Rally for Sanity'...

...because they think we should be fighting the denizens of Greater Wingnutia on their own level and with their own tactics...

---

You know, I spent a good few hours trying to figure out why I think that take on this rally is ill-conceived. Then it came to me... I absolutely understand that you want to take them on on their own terms...Would that there were a snowball's chance the battle could be won like that.

Democrats, Progressives, Liberals, Free Thinkers - Everyone even vaguely associated with our side of the fence believes in facts and figures, persuasion and provable truths. Our opposition believes in winning. They're willing to lie, to cheat and to pander to get their message across. For good or ill, We, as a collective entity, are not.

I am not talking about political campaigning. As Politifact attests daily, candidates of all stripes lie. I mean that you, me and the regular folk who are trying to communicate these ideas and positions are not going to forsake the moral high ground of truth just because 'Baggers refuse to hear anything but their own doctrine. We're kinds like the folks who help the ex-religious escape their old cultural and philosophical binds. It can't be done by creating an anti-sermon sermon. The atheists are far better spoken than the Fundies, but that hasn't helped them put an end to myths.

We have to stand our ground, live our principles and show the folks who aren't already crazied that we know something the Becks, Angles, O'Donnells, Millers, Boehners and Roves don't know... What will work for the America we ARE, not the preposterous retro-fantasy they are trying to sell the the largely unsuspecting populace.

Maybe the freedoms we have known all our lives are soon to be gone. Maybe the frightened Theocrats and thoughtless profiteering pundits will bring us down to the level of Christian Sharia. It's up in the air right now...

But, I can't lock and load while there is still some chance to bring across the vast majority of people who are NOT allied with one side or another. I goddamn well won't help them make the streets run with blood.

Fear of [Muslims] Flying

There isn't any doctrine to this simple equation... In the last decade there was one major terrorist attack on American soil, and it being used to advance the profiling, the racism and the hatred we see in New York, in Murfreesboro, TN and all across America.

One attack. By radical terrorists... But there are 1.6 BILLION Muslims in the world and the estimate of the number of terrorists by everyone but the uninformed hacks runs between five and ten thousand... Do that math... At the high end it's one terrorist in every ONE MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND Muslims. So how many in America.... four?

There's a higher ratio of gang-bangers in Newark, fer Christ's sake... Point being that this is a goddamn excuse for the rhetoric, and worse, actual violence: The cabbie shot in NY, arson in Murfreesboro, vandalism all across America... and all because the number of ACTUAL, REAL SERIOUS Islamic terrorists IN the USA might be as high as FIVE... A number, by the way, that could be reasonably assumed to be the number of Christians who are willing to bomb abortion clinics and/or murder doctors... but nobody is profiling churchgoers or vandalizing the church in the town Dr. Tiller was from - How come every Christian in HIS town wasn't questioned?

My friend Harry says Americans are not all bigots and racists. I agree, But many American ARE scared. Unfortunately, as any good psychologist can affirm, fear leads people to their lowest common denominator of behavior. Frightened people act with a mob mentality, behaving in ways none of them would individually. Frightened people are absolutely bigots and racists - Hell, there are situations in which good people would let their neighbors die to save their family - How easy it it to hate the image of some unspecified danger called a 'terrorist'.

Do you remember the Twilight Zone Episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"? Nowadays, they show it in schools to teach kids about the dangers of prejudice and hysteria. That's what's playing on the right...all day... all night.

It serves the interests of the Becks and the Palins to use charged rhetoric to keep their base afraid. It's all about 'The Other'...A president who is ...Other.... a religion that is...Other... They are not leading a national discussion to solve the problems, THEIR agenda is ultra-nationalist ultra-partisan rallying - Which does exactly nothing for the national discussion, nor does it in any way improve the chances for reasoned discussion between factions. They are reinforcing the image of monsters attacking us in our homes... a lie that short-circuits the discussion - which is EXACTLY what they intend.

We live in a dangerous time and it has little or nothing to do with anybody but ourselves. If we cannot get back to a world where parties compromise, we are going to be in a world of trouble.

Game Over (Apparently)

That's it. Game over. No appeal. American Free Speech no longer covers NON VIOLENT statements that MAY support of any organization that MIGHT be considered 'violent' by the US legal system. So says the Supreme Court. The neo-con-artists and tea-party-poopers will prolly be smiling until one of their own gets 15 years in the federal pen for making a speech...

WaPo: The Supreme Court goes too far in the name of fighting terrorism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062104267.html

Ayep. The end of the American Experiment, kiddies. No shit.

Proper use of English... or the Big Lie Technique...

Anyone who calls the gulf oil spill a 'natural' disaster is either being
disingenuous or flat out lying to take the blame off the CORPORATION
that caused it.

From Steve Benin: "When an oil company uses machinery
to go a mile below sea level, then digs down another mile below
that, and then builds a rig that explodes, ...sending
tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, there's nothing
"natural" about it."

To the angry right...

I am tired of the bullshit...

Do you support the schmucks who are throwing bricks through their representatives windows?
Are you in favor of the jamokes who cut the gas line of a Rep's brother in Tennessee?
Maybe you feels kinship with the fools who spit on a black congressman last week, or the ones who yelled racist epithets at elected reps.

The troglodytes who follow his irrational line of thinking can't see to grasp the simplest parts of government 101:

In every election,
In every debate,
In every court decision,
In every piece of legislation...

...somebody wins and somebody loses..

The honorable show some class when they lose...
They're gracious - instead of being infantile.
They accept that sometimes one does not get what one wants...

Those of us who suffered through eight years of George Bush, though he was a fool... but we didn't offer to cancel the US Government because of it.

No progressive was out in the street offering to kill representatives
No progressive was carrying a gun to a Presidential appearance.
No progressive threw bricks through Republican rep's windows.
No progressive told America to "reload".

By the way, if you don't grasp the significance in the incidents of broken windows at Dem's offices, maybe you should look up 'kristalnacht' in wikipedia.

In any event, if representative democracy isn't what you want,
there are plenty of places where that annoying 'majority rule' isn't considered important.

Cheers,

Realization...

The right to health is part of our Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life..."

AND our Constitution:

"promote the general Welfare"

One cannot have life without health, nor can one's welfare be in any way interpreted to be 'Promoted' without it.

Ergo, like racial discrimination, woman's suffrage, Social Security and Medicare...
This is a right whose understanding we have finally begun to realize - Gee, and we're only the second to last nation in the hemisphere to do it.

Like the latter two above, this is the BEGINNING of the implementation - and just as was said about both Social Security and Medicare, it ain't right yet.

On the other hand, this isn't the end of any world we are familiar with.

Who's deserting what, again?

[from Steve Benin @ the Washington monthly blog]

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared to be relishing Sen. Evan Bayh's (D-Ind.) decision not to seek re-election to his U.S. Senate seat in 2010.

In a statement, Steele put Bayh's announcement in the context of other recent Democratic retirements, saying that it was a sign Democrats were "running for the hills because they sold out their constituents and don't want to face them at the ballot box."

Is that so. Here are a handful of relevant details for the RNC to consider:

In the House, there are more Republicans retiring than Democrats.

In the Senate, there are more Republicans retiring than Democrats.

Among governors, there are more Republicans retiring than Democrats.

I can appreciate party hacks spinning as best they can, but c'mon. Does Michael Steele not have a staff to check his statements before they go out? Did it not occur to anyone at the RNC to think, "You know, if we use retirements as a baseline, and our retirements outnumber theirs, we may look foolish"?

Now me:

Apparently the ability to count isn't a requirement for the leader of the RNC.
Apparently the ability to draw a considered conclusion based of facts is also not required.

My, what a surprise.

Update: Some on the left are attacking Bayh for the possibility of allowing the Dems to lose his Senate seat. Given the tripe that slither like elected representatives, one guy who walks away, telling the truth about the sad state of our process, is not a reasonable target. I can't fault anyone who hasn't the stomach for the surreal Roman Circus that is Washington. When the people we elect grow some nads, we'll have have a system that works.

Truth Justice and....

Try this on for size...

The preamble to the Constitution of the United States:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Salient part for our purposes is "promote the general Welfare".

The Definition of the word 'welfare'...

[Free online Dictionary] Health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being.
[dictionary.com] the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity, etc., of a person, group, or organization; well-being: to look after a child's welfare; the physical or moral welfare of society.
[Merriam-Webster] the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity

The point?

Health care is, in fact, a right guaranteed by the US Constitution and, like racial equality, one that has been ignored or downplayed for the convenience of those who profit by the failure of our nation to enforce that right.

Of course, now that Health Care and Insurance Corporations are even MORE people than they were last week, you may expect to be commensurately LESS of a person come the next election. Personhood cannot be created nor destroyed...but it can be bought.

Observations after Massachusetts Senate debacle...

Progressives embrace safety nets of rights, basic health care & sustenance for all humanity. Some call this "Socialism" & are violently opposed to "Redistribution of Wealth." But "Socialization of Costs?" The opponents' story changes. Pollution, Hazardous Consumables, Workplace Injuries or fatalities - Let the public assume these costs! Socialize the costs to the masses & privatize profits for the wealthy. Nice...
(And voters continue to roll over, preferring image over issues...)

Jefferson Quips...

A few political quotes I happen to think should grow some legs and wander the blogosphere...

"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking." – A. A. Milne

"Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed." - Anna Quindlen

"The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth." - Rutherford Birchard Hayes (Yes, THAT Rutherford B. Hayes)

"The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy." - H. L. Mencken, 1936

And finally:

"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable." - James A. Garfield

I'm open to further suggestions...

Open note to A NeoCon...

I hate that everything in the freaking world is turning into American Idol.

The court ruled... Bush ignored them - but he's gone and thankfully we have now got someone who is a Constitutional Scholar in that office.

The cowboy nonsense won't happen again, if for no other reason than that President Obama UNDERSTANDS the law and what is within the constraints of the Constitution.

Hands down, the weirdest part of the debate is that Progressives like me are arguing FOR the Constitution and the Rule of Law, while NeoCons are arguing that the marginally definable idea of 'safety' trumps the law - and is worthy of finding new and interesting interpretations of the law to arrange.

Extraordinary Rendition? Kidnapping? Black Sites?
That's what we ALL knew the Commies did during the cold war. What the hell happened to make that OK with you guys????

America is NOT a semantic argument.

Today's Executive Orders....

1) "The individuals currently detained at Guantánamo have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus."

>> The writ of habeas corpus is restored. We return, as a people and as a country, to the rule of law.

2) "The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future."

>>Not only does this begin the process of closing Gitmo, but it SPECIFICALLY enjoins the CIA from running any other site of this type - including Black Sites. Excellent!

3) "All departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and timely access to, any individual detained in any armed conflict in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States Government, consistent with Department of Defense regulations and policies."

>>The red cross can visit prisoners. No 'Ghost' prisoners. No 'hidden' prisoners. No more families not knowing where their loved one is. No one can simply be 'disappeared'.

Hooray for freedom.
Hooray for the rule of law.
Hooray for America.

The cynics were wrong. Sometimes government DOES fix what it broke.

The rules... For Bloggers

A lengthy browse of the verbal expectorations know as Internet Blogs reveals that the multiverse of computer-savvy (or at least keyboard-capable) humans, is simply replete with…Nothing.

The world of blogs – if random clickage on ‘Blogger’ is any evidence – is populated with the most mindless, self-centered, boring yutzes since God decided that it was his/her universe and we were just visitors in it.

So, comes the time for a set of commandments. The Seven (so far) Commandments for Bloggers. Unfortunately, as I do not have the alleged powers of the alleged almighty, this list will have to be accepted as an advisory, and my recommended response to infractions against this list (drawing and quartering, followed by incineration and use of the ashes as fertilizer) will go, sadly, unenforced…

1) The word ‘My’ SHALL NOT appear in blog titles and/or subtitles.
We know it’s yours, genius. There has never been a immaculately conceived blog. They are writ by humans (or guys like Ann Coulter) and if this is the extent of your ability to present yourself, you might want to go back to composing grocery lists and greeting cards.

2) The word ‘Blog’ SHALL NOT appear in the title unless said blog is a parody.
Think parody movie titles… ‘Scary Movie’ or ‘Kentucky Fried Movie’… As with the first commandment, we already know it’s a blog. Sheesh.

3) We will NOT be having this whine with dinner.
The litany of misery and suffering you have experienced is yours to carry for the duration. Deal. There are bartenders and friends who will gladly share said suffering, and therapists who will gladly decrease the size of your wallet while responding pretty much like those bartenders and/or friends. Thus, unless you are paying me, I do not give a tinker’s damn who took your candy when you were a child.

4) Pictures of babies or pets are a sure cure for being read.
Whoever made the leap from blogging as a way to communicate to blogging as a replacement for vacation-picture-torture or child/grandchild gloat-overing was a terrorist of a magnitude that leaves groups like Al Queida, Hamas or Jehovah’s Witnesses green with envy. The internet, that bastion of freedom and truth, is mired in prattle about how cutesy wiw bay-bees look on the way to Wal-Mart with mommy… or the nanny… or funny Uncle Mervyn. New ways to toilet train are things to discuss in an goddamn email, please.

5) Just say no to exotic background art and zero contrast type.
The definition of communication is simple: Message sent… same message received. If your page looks like Ralph Steadman designed it may get a “first in show’ from the local Art forum, but ain’t nobody going to hurt theyself trying to decipher your brand of hieroglyphics… same-same for silver-type-on-gray-backgrounds… If your page isn’t easy to read it won’t get read at all. Why would a total stranger work that hard for your thoughts when thoughts on the web are retailing for .0000000000000000001 cents a pound.

6) If you allow comments, some perfectly reasonable people will disagree with you. Unless those disagreements are provably dishonest, obscene, or exceedingly uncivil, you don’t delete their account.

Blogs are opinions and everybody has one – the marketplace of ideas is NOT consistent with “if you wanna talk, get yer own blog.” Allowing for comments is a tacit acceptance of the possibility that you’ll learn something from others. If you cancel every though that isn’t yours, you may revel in the gloriously unanimous accolades of those who agree, but you won’t be engaged in educating yourself, nor will you be the one who collects enough divergent viewpoints to synthesize an informed, original opinion. Any parrot can repeat what they heard, just listen to the Political Sci Fi Channel (Fox).

7) On the other hand…

Dogma, jingoism and irrational nonsense, as well as circular logic (“I believe in the Bible because the Bible tells me to.”) is just cause for redirecting your energies toward some useful form of therapy. Or an increase in the quality and quantity of your meds. It is not a reason for your comments to be tolerated by fully functional industrial hominids. Write in your journal and leave bandwidth for those who are not wearing tin-foil hats, looking under the bed for aliens, or exclusively acquiring their “ knowledge” on the Political Sci Fi Channel (Fox).

8) Give everybody a bit of time.

It took a little while for this rule to make sense (ironic, no?). Some folks will arrive, full to bursting with wind and flail, yelling from (or at) the yardarm and saying ill-conceived things. Speak to them is if they were humans. In some cases, a couple, three posts into the dialogue an amazing thing will happen – They’ll calm down and start actually talking to you. The blogosphere is so full of rick-rolling-ranters that many folks start with the volume cranked up to eleven and it takes a calm response to get them back to ground - but back to ground they will go. Not all, not even many, but enough to be worth the few incidental wasted words.

A riff on the people who 'hate' poetry...

The choice of Chicago's Elizabeth Alexander as the inaugural poet is, unsurprisingly, generating sturm und drang among the cultural monotheists who don't think that, with the possible exception of the birthday cards they send their grandchildren, anything writ after Yeats and Pound qualifies as poetry...

The willful ignorance and anger of those who neither 'get' poetry, nor wish to, is staggering. It isn't enough for them to treat it like hot peppers or escargot some other exotic food: "Hey, I don't happen to like it, but if you do fine."

The dismissive voices instead decry the art as if their personal opinion were the be-all and end-all of culture. As if they had, simply put, a clue, about poetry.

Need I explain that the level of poetry we're discussing is NOT available on Hallmark Cards, in bathroom stalls, or as a dirty limerick?

Poetry is song with the music built right into the words - it is the rhythm of language, and, like any other form of music, some folks will like one tune or type of poem more than another.

It is sad that those who do not care for the art feel the need to attack those who do.

Poetry is not evangelical - nobody cares if you don't like it and you won't 'burn forever' for not listening to spoken word. All you will lose is the magic of vision, the power of imagination, the beauty of a painting that can be heard.

The Supremes sing the fringe right's swan song...

So, It finally came down, all official and everything, from the highest court in the land. There will be no consideration given the nuisance lawsuits challenging the native-born status of the President Elect.

Lets say this again, slowly, for the politico-intellectually impaired:

Any idiot can file a lawsuit for any reason. The filing does not prove, imply or suggest merit to the case.

Our system of government does NOT require that judges hear nuisance suits, even when .05% of the population is whining out loud about the issue.

Ignorance lost.
Hate lost.
Stupidity lost.
Racism lost.

Democracy won!

President Barack Obama. 44th President of the United States of America.