Head-Spinning Political Shit!

[iamkeri1]

Dread
I so agree with you regarding reality based politics. This lack of reality at least on the part of the republicans is a direct outgrowth of bible based politics. The world was created in six days by god - four thousand years ago. Nothing happened 125,000 or a million years ago, so we can not use information from that long ago for comparison, BECAUSE THE WORLD DID NOT REALLY EXIST THAT LONG AGO!

There is no reason to conserve our natural resources or keep our air and water clean BECAUSE THE WORLD WILL END SOON IN THE APOCALYPSE!

God put humans in charge of the world. Anyone who wants to protect trees or who respects animals as fairly equal to humans is ridiculous and anti-god.

The poor will always be with us is another fave of the repubs, and they aim to have as many poor people as possible to assure that rich people get more money. As reflected particularly in the old testament, rich people are natural rulers, so it is god's plan that rich people get richer so they can be in charge.

Too bad they are ignoring "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you," and "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Get religion out of politics.

Smooches,
Keri

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I keep hoping that at some point some political consultant will realize that there is a large group of Americans who want what I will call, for lack of any better term, reality-based politics. By that I mean simply this, your ideology follows the dictates of reality and not the other way around. To take just one example, global climate change is an empirical question amenable to observation. Our policy should follow the dictates of the empirical questions.
To see how this works (and why I find the idea that we're still treating the propositions advanced by either side as if they are equally true maddening and baffling) let's deconstruct this a bit.

So, according to the theories advanced in climatology IF the Earth's climate is heating up THEN we should be able to make certain kinds of observations. Those observations include--but are not limited to: melting of polar ice caps at one or both poles, rise in average temperatures with more record highs being set, increased precipitation in certain places, more intense storms for those storms driven by either heat or water vapor or both (here think hurricanes and tornadoes). These are just a partial list. Now, do we have any observations that match the predictions (each of the items above is based upon actual predictions)? If so how're the predictions holding up?

Melting of polar ice caps? Check. In fact, the Arctic is set to be ice free during the summers within five years. Has this happened before? Yes. The last time we know, with any degree of confidence, that this happened was ~125,000 years ago. Prior to that you have to go back to a time when dinosaurs still walked the planet--dinosaurs. Rise in average temperatures with more record highs being set? In the United States, the 10 hottest summer periods on record have all been in the last 10 years. So we'll add that to the 'yes' column. More intense storms driven? Yes for *both* hurricanes and tornadoes. Now this should give us a serious moment of pause because hurricanes, particularly, are sensitive to temperatures in the oceans. The frequency of power hurricanes (3+) are increasing and the number of category 4 and 5 storms have increased. I have not taken the time to chart this out (yet, I probably will this summer) but I suspect that if one looks solely at cat 4 or 5 storms starting with the middle of the 20th century (have to see how far records go back) one would see a, more or less, random distribution of storms until the mid-seventies. Then the distribution will become less random. If one looks at the trend of the last 15 years I suspect (I'll let you know either way) that we'll see a clustering of 4s and 5s after 2000 that is far less random than the pattern from, say, 1950. More precipitation? Yes, again, we are observing this. In places like the Pacific Northwest we see a longer rainy season and in places where it gets a lot of precipitation in the form of snow, we are seeing more of that as well.

The snow problem brings up an issue with the cheeky games that pass as critical analysis in modern US politics. Note that I said we should see increased precipitation, not increased rain. That was deliberate. More moisture in the air will come down either as rain or as snow depending upon the season. People use increased snowfall to argue that 'global warming isn't happening because it snowed so much in Buffalo, NY last year'. This is like saying that my house can never get above 90 degrees because it hasn't been above 90 since last August.

I harped on this issue to give an idea of what I think we should be counting as evidence. In science if your theory is not in agreement with observation and there is reason to believe that the observations were accurate then it’s the theory that is wrong. Right now our politics is being driven by exactly the opposite ethic such that if your ideology is not in agreement with observation then it is your observation that is wrong, not your ideology (to be fair, neither liberals or conservatives are particular great on this issue but right now conservatives are worse than liberals on this in more areas--liberals are primarily not reality-driven about foreign policy and certain aspects of criminal justice policy, while conservatives are not reality-driven about a whole raft of policy issues).

It doesn't matter if you *believe* that cutting tax rates actually *increases* the amount of taxes that flow in. The actual revenues taken in by all government levels are an empirical question for which there is plenty of empirical data. If we look at the tax rates over time and compare them with actual revenues over time we should be able to determine if, in fact, cutting tax rates increases revenue (hint: the theory is not in agreement with observation). At the point that your ideology is found wanting by reality, you should modify it or, if necessary, abandon it completely (this is why, for instance, I find Marxists to be a little sad now). Failure to do so in a timely fashion should come with a high political price but, at present, it doesn't.

The party that figures out that reality-based politics are not just viable but a winner both electorally and ideologically will be in a very good position.

Cheers
Aj

[AtLast]

Empirical evidence driven political policy would be quite refreshing!

[GoddessJess]

I remember in H.S History something about the seperation of church and state..now I could be wrong because history was after lunch and well I wasn't always 100% after lunch (haha) but as I grew up I kept hearing this phrase...but if America was founded on the seperation of church and state and if America was founded to get the hell away from European dictatorship and religion then why in sam hell are we still pulling laws from the bible?? And wha gets me is the selectivity of it all...we shall pull the Marriage Equlaity from the bible or laws such as te one stated in the previose posts....but when it comes to people that break laws lets just house them and pay their way...screw the fact that the bible says an eye for an eye...
I'm an all or nuthin gal...don't tell me I have to live with Jesus's followers and thei idealistic country based on religiouse beliefes and then tell me I cant shoot someone who killed one of my family members...
On the island where I grew up thats what happens..we don't have jails or overcrowding...if you kill someone we kill you back...if you rob someone you then have to support that family for 10 years.
Polotics is a bunch of shananagans(sp?) and a crap ton of lies...I hate it! and yes I vote!

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by GoddessJess

I'm an all or nuthin gal...don't tell me I have to live with Jesus's followers and thei idealistic country based on religiouse beliefes and then tell me I cant shoot someone who killed one of my family members...
On the island where I grew up thats what happens..we don't have jails or overcrowding...if you kill someone we kill you back...if you rob someone you then have to support that family for 10 years.

Actually, Jesus didn't say "an eye for an eye" that was in the OLD testament. In the New Testament that old law was removed and was replaced with:

""You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also"
Matthew 5:38-29

I have no idea what island you grew up on (I can't tell if that was a metaphor or not?) but it doesn't sound like somewhere that I would want to be, if you really do get to just run around killing people for doing you wrong.

Revenge sucks.

(Also - overcrowding in prisons has NOTHING to do with not getting to just willy-nilly kill all the bad guys. It's got everything to do with a fucked up legal system that locks people up for stupid shit (drugs, really?) and locks some (not white) people up faster and for longer than others.)

[Toughy]

well here's a funny thing........read the whole article just for fun...the article is dated May 23, 2011

http://www.thecalifornian.com/articl...ates-by-33-000


The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that California must drastically reduce its prison population to relieve severe overcrowding that has exposed inmates to increased violence, disease and death.

The decision, however, doesn't mean the prison gates will swing open in an uncontrolled release.

The high court's 5-4 decision calls on the state to cut the population to no more than 110,000 inmates. To get there, state officials have two years to either transfer some 33,000 inmates to other jails or release them. California has already been preparing for the ruling, driven as much by persistent multibillion-dollar budget deficits as by fears for the well-being of prison inmates and employees. The state has sent inmates to other states. It plans to transfer jurisdiction over others to counties, though the state doesn't have the money to do it. <snip>

Ike always said beware the military-industrial complex. It has become the prison/military/industrial complex.

[betenoire]

I also wanted to add that the prison system is a HUGE money maker for some people. So long as there are for-profit privately run/owned prisons there will -always- be overcrowding and people locked up for no good reason.

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by betenoire

I also wanted to add that the prison system is a HUGE money maker for some people. So long as there are for-profit privately run/owned prisons there will -always- be overcrowding and people locked up for no good reason.

There is some huge ass number of folks in CA prisons and jails who have been convicted on non-violent drug offenses (many of them male POC). How about, they ALL get to go free and we end the stupid fucking 'war on drugs'.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by betenoire

I have no idea what island you grew up on (I can't tell if that was a metaphor or not?) but it doesn't sound like somewhere that I would want to be, if you really do get to just run around killing people for doing you wrong.

Revenge sucks.

Whenever I hear someone talking about how much better it would be if we just shucked the messy legal system (with its rights of the accused, etc.) in favor of a more ad hoc and informal system (read vendetta) I am always brought back to a familial story on my mom's side of the family. One of her brothers had up close and personal experience of this kind of 'justice'. To put it bluntly my uncle was lynched for bumping into a white woman in small town Alabama in the 1920s. From the point of view of the people in the town at the time, my uncle had 'done something' to this white woman and he had to pay for his life. There was no trial, he was not 'charged', he ran home and later on some people came to my grandfather's farm, surrounded it and threatened to put the house to the torch if he did not give up his son. Here was 'justice' as done by people who get to determine when a crime had been committed and what punishment there should be for that crime.

Now, some might argue that this isn't what they mean when they talk about frontier 'justice' but it is rarely said what is actually meant. Since the whole idea behind the ethic of taking an eye for an eye is that there are no *laws* to be obeyed there is nothing to prevent some family from deciding that, for instance, the Hispanic family next door *must* be criminals and therefore burning them out of their home. Another objection might be raised that my family could have taken revenge on the people who lynched my uncle. However, that would only have meant the absolute obliteration of my mother's family. So a world of ad hoc 'justice' is a world that favors the powerful over the powerless and defines powerful as whoever can have the most guns still held by people with breath at the end of the day. Justice, then, becomes 'whoever won the gunfight'. It reminds me, a bit, of the story of Kaiser Soze in 'The Usual Supects'. After his family is murdered, Soze kills the perpetrators and then goes after the families of the perpetrators, people who live in the same neighborhood as the perpetrators, people who owe the perpetrators money, etc. This leaves no one to take revenge against Soze.

(Also - overcrowding in prisons has NOTHING to do with not getting to just willy-nilly kill all the bad guys. It's got everything to do with a fucked up legal system that locks people up for stupid shit (drugs, really?) and locks some (not white) people up faster and for longer than others.)

You make a great point. So why on Earth would I, a black woman, defend the criminal justice system over a system of vendetta-based 'justice'? Because legal systems have rules--I understand that we're supposed to find those rules distasteful because it gets in the way of engaging in emotionally cathartic but cruel behavior--we can't torture people and we can't just shoot people without trial--but *at least* those rules offer up the prospect of fairness and redemption. For all its flaws, if reasonable doubt can be established in my trial then I go free. Even if I was mistakenly convicted, if new evidence comes to light then I will be exonerated. I won't get my years of incarceration back but if I'm dead I can't even be exonerated. It is also demonstrably the case that the *sole* reason for prison overcrowding is the inconsistent application of drug laws in our absolutely insanely stupid 'war on drugs'. When the only other countries that are in the same neighborhood as you when it comes to locking up prisoners (and I don't mean absolute numbers, I'm talking about percentages) are nations that are either totalitarian dictatorships (China) or theocratic dictatorships (Iran) you *know* you are doing something seriously wrong.

Cheers
Aj

[theoddz]

....and this from this nutjob.

I'm just shaking my head at the mentality here, and John Boehner is Speaker of the House. I can't imagine Nancy Pelosi ever taking such a juvenile pot shot like this.



This guy is obviously college educated, of course, but he's stupid. He must have missed the School of Common Decency. I don't find what he said here to be funny one bit.

One of my old friends, from Coventry, UK, had this expression that is pretty appropriate here. She'd say, "What do you expect from a pig but a grunt??".

~Theo~

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by GoddessJess

I remember in H.S History something about the seperation of church and state..now I could be wrong because history was after lunch and well I wasn't always 100% after lunch (haha) but as I grew up I kept hearing this phrase...but if America was founded on the seperation of church and state and if America was founded to get the hell away from European dictatorship and religion then why in sam hell are we still pulling laws from the bible?? And wha gets me is the selectivity of it all...we shall pull the Marriage Equlaity from the bible or laws such as te one stated in the previose posts....but when it comes to people that break laws lets just house them and pay their way...screw the fact that the bible says an eye for an eye...
I'm an all or nuthin gal...don't tell me I have to live with Jesus's followers and thei idealistic country based on religiouse beliefes and then tell me I cant shoot someone who killed one of my family members...
On the island where I grew up thats what happens..we don't have jails or overcrowding...if you kill someone we kill you back...if you rob someone you then have to support that family for 10 years.
Polotics is a bunch of shananagans(sp?) and a crap ton of lies...I hate it! and yes I vote!

Hmmm...I'm not sure that we want to return to a society wherein if you shoot a member of my family, I kill a member of your family. In the Balkans there are interfamilial feuds that have been going on so long that there is no longer a single person alive who has even ever met the originally aggrieved party. Someone's distant ancestor did something to someone back in the early 18th century whose family took their vengeance. The family of the perpetrator, though, felt that their family member was justified so they took their vengeance. This continues on until such time as we get to, say, WW I where atrocities were spread around quite liberally. Two decades later people are still getting their revenge during WW II. Then the Cold War happens and things get squashed until the Soviet Union collapses at which point Bosnians, Serbs and Croats take up their historical feuds again. This latest round of atrocities are just fuel for the next group of feuds. As one British biologist put it "The human mind has two great sicknesses; the tendency to carry vendetta across generations and to view people as groups and not individuals". As convoluted as our system of laws may appear to be I'll take that over the system where feuds and dueling were considered reasonable ways to resolve disputes.

I'm curious, what would you replace politics with? Given that we are very diverse societies where your enlightened self-interest may not be in complete agreement with my enlightened self-interest, what other system other than politics do you suggest?

Originally Posted by iamkeri1

Dread
I so agree with you regarding reality based politics. This lack of reality at least on the part of the republicans is a direct outgrowth of bible based politics. The world was created in six days by god - four thousand years ago. Nothing happened 125,000 or a million years ago, so we can not use information from that long ago for comparison, BECAUSE THE WORLD DID NOT REALLY EXIST THAT LONG AGO!

I think our problem is as deep if not deeper than you state. We have a stone age brain, using a set of moral precepts created in the early agrarian period, to handle problems of modern societies. I was thinking about your post on my drive to work this morning while listening to a chapter of a book where the author was talking about worldwide demographic changes brought on by technology. What follows is dove-tailing off of both.

Take a look at our sexual mores. There is no more poignant example of the mismatch between our biology, our religiously based moral and ethical systems and modern reality. Our bodies are operating off a program where we enter puberty around 13 or 14 on the expectation that we'll become sexually active and start having babies. For all but the last 100 years that program has worked very well. Our moral systems, conceived when agriculture was relatively new and birth control was, at best, inconsistently effective, assume that people will only be sexual inside of marriage, that women will have lots of children and spend most of their lives taking care of those children, that men will control property and resources and relationships will only end because of death. Yet the lives of most of the people reading this thread have not fit that pattern and for those of us who have kids or grandchildren it is vanishingly improbable that our offspring or descendants will have lives that approximate that pattern. From gay marriage--which makes perfect moral sense in our current moral context where any *necessary* link between sex, marriage and reproduction has been broken--to our laws about abortion or birth control what is taken as the default moral position is horribly out of date. The average age of marriage in the industrialized world is now creeping up toward thirty but people are still entering puberty around 12 - 14. It is simply unrealistic that people are going to spend the next two decades being celibate, it isn't happening for vast majorities of people. Nor does it make sense for two 20 year olds who are both undergraduates to start having children until both of them have *at least* gotten a bachelor's if not an advanced degree. We need to retool our laws and moral expectations to reflect reality. The problem is that we can only do this with a stone-aged brain that will tend to be more in agreement with our Bronze Age religious systems than with our modern lifestyles.

Cheers
Aj

[theoddz]

I know this is a few months old, but it's the complete speech by Michael Moore to the worker protesters in Madison, Wisconsin this past March. I'm watching this....ALL nearly 30 minutes of this, and I can't help but think about my history lessons in high school and college and remember what happened that brought about the Russian revolution and the rise of the USSR.

I'm not thinking so much about the actual results of that revolution asmuch as this video/speech makes me think about how the Russian people rose up against much the same political/class structor that brought the royal family and aristocratic society of old Russia down and brought in the USSR.

I'm looking at this in the sense of the energy that starts this kind of revolt. The rhetoric, thoughts and energy here has to be nearly the same as what the socialists ("socialism" isn't necessarily a negative thing to me, btw, so don't think I'm talking about that in a negative sense). Take a look and watch the whole thing. Really. What do you think??? I'm interested in hearing what you good folks think.

Thanks!!!



~Theo~

[dreadgeek]

A couple of weeks ago, there was a post singing the praises of vigilante justice and bemoaning all of the rights that the accused receive. It was stated that on the island the poster grew up on, there was no law enforcement and no prisons. If someone did something to you, your family did something to their family. This was offered as the more desirable way of handling crime and punishment.

For those with the "shoot 'em all" mentality, I offer you this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_888454.html

MONTICELLO, Miss. -- After 10 years of incarceration, and seven years after a jury sentenced him to die, 30-year-old Cory Maye will soon be going home. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Prentiss Harrell signed a plea agreement Friday morning in which Maye pled guilty to manslaughter for the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones, Jr.

Per the agreement, Harrell then sentenced Maye to 10 years in prison, time he has now already served. Maye will be taken to Rankin County, Mississippi, for processing and some procedural work. He is expected to be released within days.

Maye's story, a haunting tale about race, the rural south, the excesses of the drug war, the inequities of the criminal justice system and a father's instincts to protect his daughter, caught fire across the Internet and the then-emerging blogging world when I first posted the details on my own blog in late 2006.

Shortly after midnight on December 26, 2001, Maye, then 21, was drifting off to sleep in his Prentiss duplex as the television blared in the background. Hours earlier, he had put his 18-month-old-daughter to sleep. He was soon awoken by the sounds of armed men attempting to break into his home. In the confusion, he fired three bullets from the handgun he kept in his nightstand.

As he'd later testify in court, Maye realized within seconds that he'd just shot a cop. A team of police officers from the area had received a tip from an informant -- later revealed to be a racist drug addict -- that there was a drug dealer living in the small yellow duplex on Mary Street. It now seems clear that the police were after Jamie Smith, who lived on the other side of the duplex, not Maye or his live-in girlfriend Chenteal Longino. Neither Maye nor Longino had a criminal record. Their names weren't on the search warrants.

Maye would later testify that as soon as he realized the armed men in his home were police, he surrendered and put up his hands. There were three bullets still left in his gun. But Maye had just shot a cop. And not just any cop. He shot Officer Ron Jones, Jr., the son of Prentiss Police Chief Ron Jones, Sr. Maye is black; Jones was white. And this was Jefferson Davis County, a part of Mississippi still divided by tense relations between races. Maye was arrested and charged with capital murder, the intentional killing of a police officer.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that America went the vigilante route espoused by this poster. Where would Mr. Maye be? In a coffin. What if we still had the law but the "convict 'em and shoot 'em" ethic that is *also* espoused here? Where would might we find Mr. Maye then? In a coffin.

But *because* Mr. Maye could appeal and *because* more evidence could come to light, Mr. Maye lives, he lost 10 years of his life but he still lives. He can now have the rest of his life. Is that worth the tax dollars? Without doubt.


Cheers
Aj

[Andrea]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

A couple of weeks ago, there was a post singing the praises of vigilante justice and bemoaning all of the rights that the accused receive. It was stated that on the island the poster grew up on, there was no law enforcement and no prisons. If someone did something to you, your family did something to their family. This was offered as the more desirable way of handling crime and punishment.

For those with the "shoot 'em all" mentality, I offer you this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_888454.html

MONTICELLO, Miss. -- After 10 years of incarceration, and seven years after a jury sentenced him to die, 30-year-old Cory Maye will soon be going home. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Prentiss Harrell signed a plea agreement Friday morning in which Maye pled guilty to manslaughter for the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones, Jr.

Per the agreement, Harrell then sentenced Maye to 10 years in prison, time he has now already served. Maye will be taken to Rankin County, Mississippi, for processing and some procedural work. He is expected to be released within days.

Maye's story, a haunting tale about race, the rural south, the excesses of the drug war, the inequities of the criminal justice system and a father's instincts to protect his daughter, caught fire across the Internet and the then-emerging blogging world when I first posted the details on my own blog in late 2006.

Shortly after midnight on December 26, 2001, Maye, then 21, was drifting off to sleep in his Prentiss duplex as the television blared in the background. Hours earlier, he had put his 18-month-old-daughter to sleep. He was soon awoken by the sounds of armed men attempting to break into his home. In the confusion, he fired three bullets from the handgun he kept in his nightstand.

As he'd later testify in court, Maye realized within seconds that he'd just shot a cop. A team of police officers from the area had received a tip from an informant -- later revealed to be a racist drug addict -- that there was a drug dealer living in the small yellow duplex on Mary Street. It now seems clear that the police were after Jamie Smith, who lived on the other side of the duplex, not Maye or his live-in girlfriend Chenteal Longino. Neither Maye nor Longino had a criminal record. Their names weren't on the search warrants.

Maye would later testify that as soon as he realized the armed men in his home were police, he surrendered and put up his hands. There were three bullets still left in his gun. But Maye had just shot a cop. And not just any cop. He shot Officer Ron Jones, Jr., the son of Prentiss Police Chief Ron Jones, Sr. Maye is black; Jones was white. And this was Jefferson Davis County, a part of Mississippi still divided by tense relations between races. Maye was arrested and charged with capital murder, the intentional killing of a police officer.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that America went the vigilante route espoused by this poster. Where would Mr. Maye be? In a coffin. What if we still had the law but the "convict 'em and shoot 'em" ethic that is *also* espoused here? Where would might we find Mr. Maye then? In a coffin.

But *because* Mr. Maye could appeal and *because* more evidence could come to light, Mr. Maye lives, he lost 10 years of his life but he still lives. He can now have the rest of his life. Is that worth the tax dollars? Without doubt.


Cheers
Aj

Although one such story is sufficient reason to eliminate the death penalty, in my opinion, there seems to be a great number of similar situations in the news in recent years.

Yes, some times it feels as if the criminal has more rights than the victim, but some times it is the 'criminal' that is the victim, and I would want all those rights available to me if I found myself in that situation.

Thank you for posting this, Aj.

Andrea

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Although one such story is sufficient reason to eliminate the death penalty, in my opinion, there seems to be a great number of similar situations in the news in recent years.

Yes, some times it feels as if the criminal has more rights than the victim, but some times it is the 'criminal' that is the victim, and I would want all those rights available to me if I found myself in that situation.

Thank you for posting this, Aj.

Andrea

Thank you. It always does my heart good when people can put themselves in the situation of someone wrongly accused of a crime and say to themselves, "what rights would I want to have in my favor if I were in that situation". It is even better when folks can then extend that out to encompass actual criminals.

I think that criminals and victims of crimes have the same rights. The difference is that criminals don't *respect* the rights of others.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by theoddz

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="Black"]I know this is a few months old, but it's the complete speech by Michael Moore to the worker protesters in Madison, Wisconsin this past March. I'm watching this....ALL nearly 30 minutes of this, and I can't help but think about my history lessons in high school and college and remember what happened that brought about the Russian revolution and the rise of the USSR.

I'm not thinking so much about the actual results of that revolution asmuch as this video/speech makes me think about how the Russian people rose up against much the same political/class structor that brought the royal family and aristocratic society of old Russia down and brought in the USSR.

I'm looking at this in the sense of the energy that starts this kind of revolt. The rhetoric, thoughts and energy here has to be nearly the same as what the socialists ("socialism" isn't necessarily a negative thing to me, btw, so don't think I'm talking about that in a negative sense). Take a look and watch the whole thing. Really. What do you think??? I'm interested in hearing what you good folks think.

Thanks!!!

Honestly, one of the things that has driven me crazy the last two decades or so is how astoundingly stupid the wealthy have been. Jobs have been shipped overseas and at the same time the wealthy have bought into this Ayn Rand philosophy that *any* social welfare or business regulation or taxes is nothing more than the 'parasites' (her words, not mine) trying to milk the John Galt's of this world. The complete stupidity of doing the former while enacting policies based on the latter seems to me to be a perfect recipe for a historical disaster.

Something the West hit on during the 20th century was that the middle-class is a stabilizing presence in democracies. Look, let us all admit that we're not going to all have the wealth of Gates or Winfrey or, for that matter, a hedge fund manager or member of the Senate (every one a millionaire). But if you came from humble beginnings, you might be able to get a job and eventually get yourself into the middle-class. If you were middle-class you could pass on something to your kids, who might do a little better than you did. The poor had something to shoot for--something that was attainable if jobs were present and unions kept wages high. Was it perfect? No, but it was workable.

Then this Rand meme grabbed the imagination of American conservatism and off to the races they went. Our current woes are rooted in the short-sightedness of the ruling economic and political classes. They are enabled by the general fecklessness of American liberalism which, at some point, forgot its organized labor roots and lost blue-collar Americans.

The thing that makes me shake my head is that it didn't and doesn't have to be this way. Good schools, a sense of shared sacrifice, a recognition that patriotism is far more than shouting "USA! USA!" and a willingness to actually, I don't know, apply the law to all and we could turn this around. That is why I appreciate what Moore and Van Jones are trying to do. They are trying to get the middle-class and the working-class to join up in a common cause so that those voices will be heard--or if they are summarily ignored, at least we know where we stand.

The political elite of a democratic republic that are not, at least, attuned to the will of the public is no longer either. It is probably safe to say that clear majorities of Americans believe that the oil companies should no longer have their subsidies, that corporations should not be able to hold their profits made offshore beyond the reach of the IRS, and that we should not be maintaining an imperial military abroad. Now, the question becomes will the political elites be responsive to that. If they aren't when the last fires are put out and the last kangaroo court has closed up shop, they will only have themselves to blame for the wreckage of the nation.

Do any of those folks look like people who want revolution for the sake of revolution? No. If those people didn't fear for their jobs, their homes, did not feel that every break went to the people at the top and corporations and thought that their children would do a little better than them that they would even turn out? I don't think they would.

"I am on the social-democratic left with regard to domestic economic policy: “democratic” because I do not see how one can fully nationalize an economy without creating an enormous and repressive state apparatus, “social-democratic” because I believe that without a measure of practical equality with regard to fundamental human needs, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." (Michael Berube)

Cheers
Aj

[Ebon]

Original Article

Bachmann Signs Anti-Porn Pledge Saying Blacks Were Better Off During Slavery

Avatar for Irin Carmon Irin Carmon —Bachmann Signs Anti-Porn Pledge Saying Blacks Were Better Off During SlaveryMichele Bachmann, it will not shock you to learn, is the first Republican candidate to sign a pledge to be the most socially conservative candidate to walk the plains of Iowa. The document itself is a thing of beauty.

As an artifact of the current socially conservative philosophy, the tenets are nothing new — anti-gay, anti-choice, obsessed with sexual mores — but it's notable in its pseudo-feminist language and bizarre references to science. A casual observer might accidentally mistake it for something other than bigotry.

Think Progress points out that the pledge includes an anti-pornography call; we'd add that it lumps it in with sex slavery, trafficking, and abortion under "humane protection for women and the innocent fruits of conjugal intimacy." With this, and all the talk of "stolen innocence," and the conflation of women in combat roles with sexual exploitation and sexual harassment with Don't Ask Don't Tell (really), women are given roughly the same amount of agency as embryos.

Speaking of biology, look who's anti-science now! You are, gays who were born this way.

Jack and Jill Politics also points out the creepy and racist language about African American families:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President.

"Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive," writes Cheryl Contee. Surely we can blame this on the gays.

[AtLast]

The continuing drama "on the Hill" over the debt-ceiling is one BIG piece of political shit going on. Here is an OpEd from the Post that is interesting in terms of Obama invoking the 14th Amendment and ordering the Treasury to lift it by Executive Order. I know very well that this would errupt into calls for impeachment (plus who knows what else- he is taken to task for going to the bathroom as far as I'm concerned) by the GOP, yet, it does call out the ultra-right and the Tea Party congressional members on all their "get back to the Constitution" line of bull. I saw vander Heuvel interviewed about this piece last night and as usual, she has some damn good points!

Invoke-the-14th Katrina vanden Heuvel

Editor and publisher of the Nation magazine, vanden Heuvel writes a weekly column for The Post.



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