Thoughts From The Big Head

Give The People What They Want

2010-02-12T04:21:00.001-08:00

As our no-longer-governable, no-longer-sane nation continues its long slide toward collapse, I've adopted a new political philosophy. That philosophy can be summed up in two words: Fuck it.

So, in light of that new worldview, I say, in all seriousness, let's give the idiots what they want. They want the hands of the Federal government off of their health care? Fine by me.

Let's get rid of Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP. Let's stop the antitrust exemption for health-insurance companies. And, most of all, let's end the taxpayer subsidy of employer-provided health insurance in America.

And then we can sit back and watch, our mirth meters maxed out, as those same morons whine endlessly about their elderly parents suddenly becoming their financial responsibility, about their actual, full compensation from work being taxed, about the exponential increases in the costs of care. It would be sublimely amusing to hear the Becks and Limbaughs of the world tell them that this GOP dream-come-true is all the fault of the evil libruls. And to watch them believe it.

Hell, such policy changes wouldn't affect me. I'd still be a working-class schlub who can't afford insurance. My parents are both dead, and I won't live long enough to worry about Medicare anyway.

That's what it's all about in today's America, right? It's all I, me, mine, and to hell with the common good.

Let's do it.

Democracy In America: It Was Nice While It Lasted

2010-01-21T17:10:00.000-08:00

Democracy in the United States of America is now finished. Done. Kaput.

The radical right Thursday succeeded in their ultimate goal: Destroying the America in which I grew up, the America that I proudly served and loved. They did so through the beyond-merely-conservative judicial nominations of the last thirty years, in the person of the Supreme Court's decision concerning Citizens United v. FEC.

Activist Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy have broken entirely with precedent in unleashing the full capacity of corporations, be they American or not, be they criminal or not, to spend their general funds upon influencing elections within this country.

The clerical error of the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision -- the SCOTUS decision that is claimed to have granted corporations personhood -- has been taken to its illogical conclusion, and in so doing the High Court has effectively diminished the rights of actual persons to the point that they may as well no longer exist.

In the end, the radical right believes that the costs of government should be borne by the working class while its benefits should accrue only to the wealthy. With this decision, that twisted "dream" is one very large step closer to sad reality.

The effects of this ruling may not be apparent to us immediately, perhaps, but they will eventually erode away the fabric of true democracy. Despite the natural tendency of America's electorate to resist concentrated power (either political or monetary), this new class of Supercitizens can count upon the pusillanimous and self-serving nature of the American political class.

Think about the prospective corporate attack apparatus that will face any incumbent in a potentially vulnerable seat that resists falling into line with the desired agenda, the threat to his or her reelection. The change in our political process will be much more about intimidation -- the threat of action -- than outright, overt action. This revolution will not be televised, if the powerful have their way, and we will be none the wiser until it is far too late.

And that's it. Goodbye America. Game over. Fritos, man.

Maybe It's Time To Give Up

2010-01-08T04:31:00.000-08:00

Are we a serious people?

That question has repeatedly been posed by Bill Maher on Real Time in the past year; I think it's a good one. And I fear that the answer is a resounding, "No."

We are a people who believes that we can get something for nothing. We believe that we can simultaneously have both increased government services and lower taxes. We decry government "pork-barrel" spending, yet ferociously defend any program, agency or policy that directly benefits us individually. We shed crocodile tears about the burdens our current policies will place upon future generations, yet refuse to do anything to change those policies.

The politics of our day is a stunning exercise in self-delusion and cognitive dissonance. I encounter many liberals, people who supported Barack Obama's Presidential bid, who are in many cases absolutely enraged that the President is enacting exactly the policies that he promulgated during the campaign. And conservatives who nodded heartily in agreement when Vice President Cheney intoned, "Deficits don't matter," who cheered as the Bush Administration went about the business of squandering the budget surpluses left them by the Clinton Administration, now unselfconsciously clothe themselves in the ill-fitting robe of fiscal responsibility.

Today's political parties, to a greater degree than since the Gilded Age, serve narrowly-defined constituencies; the corrosive influence of special-interest monies has eaten away at the notion of a "public good." Good policy no longer matters, only the exigencies of the permanent election cycle. And, most disturbing, we actually embrace this notion of politics-as-gladiatorial-theater; we root for our chosen "leaders" and their insincere, insubstantial, bought-and-paid-for ideologies as though they were players for our favorite sports team.

This can be seen even in America's pop culture. A new class of celebrity has emerged: people who are famous just for being famous. Lack of talent, ability or intelligence is no longer an issue, as long as one is determined enough to force one's way into the popular consciousness. We have Paris, Jon, Kate, OctoMom, Balloon Boy, and the list goes on, and on, and on.

This is not the manner in which a serious people behaves. It is the behavior, rather, of an empire in decline. One can't help but think that we have reached the point as a nation where we are essentially ungovernable; we have lost the self-discipline and perspective to forestall our eventual, inevitable collapse as a society.

And so I sadly say: Perhaps it is time for the serious-minded among us to give simply up and join in America's death-throe party. Though we may be well-meaning, the pearls we cast before swine just don't matter.

Making Up Their Own Facts

2009-09-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a Conservative acquaintance, one in which he claimed that one's political affiliation determines which "facts" one chooses to believe. We were speaking in particular about the current health-care-reform debate, and, essentially, his assertion was that there is somehow an equivalence between the latest Glenn (The University of I Don't Remember) Beck fabrication and actual, real-world statistics compiled by organizations such as WHO.

And so it goes with the Radical Right. If reality is too difficult or inconvenient, then they truly believe that they can simply make up an alternative set of facts that better fit the way they want to see the world.

Just look back to those heady days of the Bush Administration's first term, when the Neocons so arrogantly proclaimed that "...we create our own reality." Those of us in the "reality-based community" were passe, hopelessly mired in a non-fantasy-based past.

I think we all can recall how that worked itself out in Mister Bush's second term.

Because, no matter how much one might want want to believe, say, that America's health-care system provides the best results in the world... well, that pesky reality does keep getting in the way. We don't cover as large a percentage of our population as, get worse results than, and still rack up more money spent per capita than, any other Western democracy. And no amount of made-up drivel about "Death Panels" or "Socialism" is going to change that.

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

2009-09-14T06:20:00.001-07:00

This says more about the teabaggers than I ever could.

The Crazy Lady Who "Represents" Me

2009-08-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, the one and only, certifiably insane Michelle Bachmann, "my" U.S. Representative, is at it again. The most recent crazy quote:

The steps that are being taken by the current Administration have more in line with the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.

Setting aside that she mispronounces "Weimar," it's still quite entertaining that Bachmann would compare the Obama Administration to the democratically-elected government of Germany in the period of 1919-1933. After all, since she wants to supplant the current government, wouldn't that make her, and those allied with her, the historical equivalent of Hitler and the Nazis?

Of course, I'm not really suggesting that she and her ilk are the equivalent of fascists. (I, unlike them, am too well-enough grounded in both reality and human decency to sink to such lows.) But it is hilarious that Bachmann is so historically illiterate that she does not see the obvious logical extension of her assertion.

One way or another, it's just pretty damn funny. And telling.

Welcome Back, Michael Vick?

2009-08-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

Thursday night, news came that quarterback and NFL pariah Michael Vick has returned to the league, signed by the Philadelphia Eagles to bolster their chances of making it to the Super Bowl. And this development leaves me feeling deeply ambivalent.

Does a man like Vick -- a felon convicted of Federal charges stemming from his involvement in a horrific dogfighting ring, yet also a man who has paid his proverbial "debt to society" -- now deserve another chance to pursue a very, very lucrative football career?

I just don't know.

In a press conference Friday, he said, "I know I've done some terrible things, made a horrible mistake... We all have issues, we all deal with certain things..." But what he did to land behind bars was no mistake, no garden-variety accident. His actions, though truly difficult to fathom, were willful and deliberate. The brutality that Vick displayed in pitting his unwilling canine minions against each other in fights to the death, as well as in executing many of them, indicates a cruelty, a lack of empathy that is often found in incipient serial killers, not in your average citizen.

And such language makes me feel as though he really hasn't come to grips with what he did; instead, it seems as though he is sorry only that he got caught and had to pay the price.

Nonetheless, he has paid the price -- a terrible price that cost him years of his life in prison, years of his career and millions upon millions of dollars, driving him to bankruptcy. Should we now deprive him of the opportunity to make a future living, too?

Were veterinary medicine or animal husbandry his chosen work, perhaps we would be right in doing so. But now, I fear, we must simply hope that Michael Vick is able to live up to his own professions of rehabilitation. I wish him the best; perhaps he can actually get his life straightened out.

But I'm surely glad that he isn't trying to do so as a member of my beloved Vikings.

So Much For Health Care Reform

2009-08-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

At this point, I think I can officially announce that health care reform in the United States is again dead. It will not happen; millions will continue to lack coverage, with millions more under-covered, and the costs to our nation will keep escalating. And the fault belongs entirely to the majority Democratic Party.

Let's start with President Obama, for it was he who, out of hand, rejected the notion of a single-payer system, thus immediately shifting the debate rightward and eliminating as a possibility the surest method to expand coverage, control costs and improve outcomes.

Mister Obama, as President, has given up thinking big for some hope of bipartisanship. But the Republicans have no interest in being bipartisan; they wish only to muddy the waters and score inside-the-beltway political points. So why give up policy for a pipe dream? And isn't making good policy really what politics is all about?

And then there are the conservative Democrats, the Blue Dogs. Whether you consider it fortunate or unfortunate, as the G.O.P. has devolved into a party at the margins of political thought, the Democratic Party has become the refuge of serious politicians, be they liberal, moderate or conservative. At this point, the debate within the party has come to matter far more than the debate between parties.

And the Blue Dogs are very concerned about the cost of health care reform. What they fail to deal with, though, is the cost of failing to enact serious change. At this point health care eats up over 17% of GDP -- that's more than $2.7 trillion -- and those costs are going to continue rising exponentially if we do nothing. We already pay the costs of health care, and will continue to do so; it is just a matter of how, and how intelligently, we decide to do so.

Also telling is the amount of money that is flowing into our lawmaking process from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and the results that it buys. That political finance in the U.S. is nothing more than a system of legalized bribery can no longer be reasonably argued -- but this is an issue that neither party seems particularly interested in addressing (I guess that is where you can find true bipartisanship in Washington).

This mess, caused by the corruption that is Washington, D.C., means that our elected representatives will essentially do nothing to meaningfully change our current broken system, even if a bill somehow makes it through the process. What I fear is that we will end up with an individual mandate for insurance while failing to control costs or improve care -- in other words, a massive giveaway to insurance and drug providers at public expense.

And if it happens, the fault will lay directly at the feet of the Democrats.

Franklin Henry Means, 1922-2009

2009-07-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

Long ago, when my wife Barb and I were in the nascent, getting-to-know-each-other phase of our relationship, she one day asked me, "Who are your heroes?" I was able to reply without hesitation: "John Lennon and my Dad." She was suitably impressed.

Suitably, I say, because it really had nothing to do with me. Instead, it was a testament to what kind of man my father was; his character was so evident that even that stupid, cocky, know-it-all teenage boy could see it.

Frank Means, my Dad, died today at age 86.

Dad's story was, in many ways, the common story of his generation: His childhood was shaped by the cruelties of the Great Depression; his young adulthood was spent in the service of his country during the Second World War and as part of the Army of Occupation of Japan; he returned home to marry the woman he loved, to build a family and a life (and, in so doing, to help rebuild our nation) through hard work, thrift and patience.

But to reduce the life of Frank Means to something so trite as a mere demographic exercise would be a great disservice. He was not a man of means, nor power, nor wide acclaim. Yet in that supposedly "ordinary" life, he was an extraordinary man.

In a world where simple, common decency is far too uncommon, Dad was the embodiment of the notion. He saw other people as human beings -- not as tools to be manipulated toward his ends, not as obstacles to be overcome, not as merely the money with which they might be parted nor as the sum total of their possessions, but as people endowed with human dignity and deserving of a basic respect.

When I was a child of perhaps ten, I found a five-dollar bill on the floor of the local dime store; when I brought it to the attention of the cashier, an elderly woman immediately claimed it as money that she had lost, and, though it was clearly not actually hers, I gave it to her. This bothered me, and I told Dad about it later. He thought about it for moment, and then said, "Well, she must have needed that money a lot more than you did."

Looking back now, of course, I know that Dad was right. The woman was clearly not well-off; that five dollars that might have bought me a few packs of baseball cards or a treat instead probably bought her a couple of meals. It was a lasting lesson that Dad managed to impart in thirteen simple words.

Outstanding, too, about Dad was his sense of humor. His smile was always at the ready, his laughter a big, booming affair that carried across the largest of rooms. We often joked that in order to find Dad, all you had to do was follow the sound of that laugh.

There was an enduring love of baseball that ran deep in him, a love that he also imparted to his children. As a young man, he played the game. Constantly, and well enough that he was actually offered a minor-league contract by the Milwaukee Braves. Dad, then with a young family, had to say no to that offer, to the vagaries and uncertainties of the minor-league life, but it certainly was evidence of the skill and joy that he brought to the sport.

By the time that I was old enough to be part of it, he was in his mid-fifties and had moved on to managing (along with his friend and brother-in-law, Chuck) Spooner's city league baseball team. I was only able to see Dad play once, when the team was so shorthanded that it pressed him into service. Even at age 54, he went 3 for 4 with an RBI against a pitcher less than half his age. I don't know if I ever saw him smile so broadly as he did that day.

There was Dad's tender, affectionate nature, which, too, lives on in his children. Having lost his own father to cancer when he was only twelve years old, he endeavored to give his family the paternal love that he had missed for much of his life. I don't think that a day went by in my childhood during which I was not told that I was loved. Dad taught me that a man could be masculine while still being warm-hearted, loving, even sentimental.

And of course no recollection of Frank Means would be complete without mention of the greatest love of his life: his wife, his partner, Kathleen Means. He said that he fell for her the first time he saw her, Chuck's little sister, when she was just thirteen years old. That love endured for more than half a century; his devotion to, and respect for, Mom was extraordinary, deep and abiding, lasting far beyond her death in January of 1999. He was always patient with her, kind, gentle, indulgent. A gentleman in the finest sense of the word.

As much as anything, that has shaped the man that I am today, the relationship that I have with Barb. He taught me to honor women and womanhood, to see as precious the bond between the two of us, as partners, as lovers, as friends.

In recent years, much of what made Dad who he was began to slowly, and then more precipitously, fade. The laughter came less and less often; the humor became less apparent. There were still glimpses of the real Dad, but he was gradually robbed from us, and, worse, from himself. That he has now rejoined Mom is only right. But that doesn't make it any easier for those of us who must go on without him, without his smile and love and wisdom.

My failings and failures in this world are my own. But most of the little good that I manage to achieve in this world is due to Frank Means.

I miss you, Dad, and I love you.

Ignorance Is Not Virtue

2009-07-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

The culture wars continue, with now-well-known idiot (and Arizona Republican State Senator) Sylvia Allen exhibiting her vast knowledge of both geology and cosmology. That such a display of ignorance is essentially required to win a primary as a member of the GOP is a sad commentary upon the state of both the party and our nation.

In my dark hours, I fear that we are truly in a cosmic war, one that will determine whether mankind continues forward toward a true planetary civilization or sinks back into the darkness of its past, withering to eventual extinction. It is a fight between those of us who can embrace modernity and those who cling to callowness, superstition and prejudice.

In this fight, the likes of Osama bin Laden and Ali Khamenei are allied with the Sam Brownbacks and Pat Robertsons and James Inhofes of the world, each of them trying to stamp out rational thought in the name of his own version of fundamentalist purity, each of them certain that he is the true servant of the one true god, each ready to murder any and all who don't see the world as he does.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If it wishes to survive, humanity had better hope that my side wins.

This Is Just Wrong

2009-06-17T11:39:00.001-07:00

Professional attention whore (and part-time NFL quarterback) Brett Favre in a Minnesota Vikings uniform? I've hoped against hope that it wouldn't happen.

After Monday's HBO premiere of Joe Buck Live, however, it seems to be a sad inevitability. In his interview with Buck, Favre essentially said that, as long as his arm heals as expected from recent surgery, he will be a member of my beloved Vikings. And nothing could be more wrong.

Roger Staubach didn't end his career as a Redskin; Kirby Puckett didn't go play for Tony LaRussa in Oakland; Ernie Banks didn't migrate to the South Side of Chicago.

So why does the Hillbilly Gunslinger torment us so? To see him in purple and gold will be nothing short of an abomination. Rooting for the Favre-led Vikings will be virtually impossible, and, should he actually take us to football's promised land, the entire experience will be tainted so much as to make it utterly miserable.

Favre must surely be aware of the tarnish that he is putting upon his reputation. His gift sack for Michael Strahan, his endless "will-I-retire-or-won't-I?" off-season dramas, his forced trade to the Jets, and now this... Do yourself, and all of us, a favor, Brett. Stay retired.

And This Is Why I Can't Be A Democrat

2009-05-13T12:42:00.001-07:00

Over the last week or so, details have begun to emerge concerning the knowledge that Congressional Democratic leadership -- and particularly Nancy Pelosi -- had about America's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (read: torture) in the period immediately following September 11, 2001.

Sadly, after much dissembling and backtracking by the Speaker, it has become apparent that, at the very least (and despite her knowledge), she failed to raise any meaningful objections to these techniques until it became politically expedient for her to do so. Or, as 2004 candidate John Kerry might have said, Pelosi was "for torture before she was against it."

This is exactly why I can never be a member of the Democratic Party, why I could not bring myself to vote for John Kerry, nor for Al Gore before him, nor for Bill Clinton before him. Too often, too many Democrats (even on occasions when their inclinations may be correct) tend to take the path of least political resistance and ignore their principles. Or what should be their principles, were they not almost as corrupted by power and special interests as are their Republican rivals.

And what I find almost as disturbing is the willingness of many on the left to act as mere shills, to be apologists for the dereliction of duty practiced by Pelosi and her ilk. If she failed in her responsibilities to America, then let her face the consequences. She -- and all Democrats -- must be made to understand that enduring American ideals matter far more than the latest opinion poll, far more than the fleeting popularity of a Republican administration, far more than the next electoral cycle.

And, if they cannot understand this, then they do not deserve to maintain their current positions of power.

*****

That said, let us take a look at a point of emphasis about which the Left is currently obsessing: torture investigations and prosecutions. To me, there could be no worse idea. The President is correct; there is little of value that can come from such an endeavor.

Yes, I recognize that the Bush Administration lost sight of the ideals that make our nation extraordinary, and, yes, they may have violated both U.S. law and our international treaty obligations. But, I beg you, let us look back to the days after 9/11, to the desperate fear that gripped much of the country. Another attack was inevitable, went the conventional wisdom -- and soon. (And, many feared, in their own backyards. You narcissists know who you are.)

Was the Bush Administration torture policy morally right? No, I do not believe so. But was it borne of a sadistic desire to break the law -- or of a fervent inclination to protect America from further catastrophe? I must conclude that it was the latter.

We must learn from the pseudo-legal darkness into which we, as a nation, willingly descended. But to further descend into a spiral of retribution and bitterness could serve no good of which I can conceive.

Second-Guessing Everyone But Themselves

2009-04-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

For the last week, we've had the opportunity to listen to the idea-deprived right wing bash President Obama for "not standing up to terrorists." Which, apparently, pirates who are in it entirely for the money qualify as, if you really, really want to paint a Democrat in a bad light. (Seriously, who pays attention to actual definitions of words?)

Then came this weekend's rescue, approved by the President himself, should it become necessary. Former hostage Captain Richard Phillips is fine now... and the vapid Fox News chicken-hawks are just as impotent and empty-headed as ever, even if there is slightly more egg upon their faces.

Do you think they'll actually say anything about it, fully admit how wrong they were? Or will they just move on to nit-picking about the next manufactured pseudo-scandal, such as whether or not the Obamas' new dog actually qualifies as a rescue animal?

I'm betting on the latter.

The Language Of Irrationalism

2009-03-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been trying to gain some sort of understanding of just what it is that drives those of the right-wing stripe. It seems as though there are two mutually unintelligible political languages being spoken in this nation, as though there is an unbridgeable chasm between the far right and the rest of us.

Certainly, there are aspects of modern conservatism of which I have at least some comprehension: The affluent being in favor of policies that further enrich them is easily understandable; The pro-life movement I have some sympathy for, though I feel that they are being led down the primrose path by the G.O.P.; Right-wing racism, nativism, xenophobia and homophobia, though I find them to be reprehensible, are readily grasped.

But just what is it that drives an otherwise normal working-class person to act consistently against his or her own self-interest (and, as it turns out, the interests of the nation as a whole)?

This quest led, in the past week, to a rather interesting exchange with a conservative co-worker, the impetus being a bumper-sticker that read, "Obama: Keep the change. I'll keep my guns, my money and my freedom." It led me to muse aloud why so many people, despite the Administration's policy proposals, were so eager to believe the Republican Party's implication that Barack Obama wants to, in essence, disarm them, take their hard-earned money and give it to a bunch of shiftless Negroes.

My co-worker's ever-so-eloquent reply? "Because we're not liberal commies." I laughed, then ironically thanked him for being so helpful. His rejoinder: "It may be blunt, but it's true."

At this point, I realized that he was not attempting to amuse, in the manner that I might when jokingly calling him a fascist. Instead, he was dead serious; his mindless, and ultimately meaningless, iteration of hate-radio talking points was, in his own mind, a decisive bon mot.

I proceeded to ask him numerous questions about his beliefs. He refused to answer questions about actual public policy, instead preferring to engage in ad hominem attacks against the President; he repeatedly regurgitated the right-wing talking point concerning Obama's use of a teleprompter. Apparently not realizing that Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 had also extensively used such devices, he was only too ready to embrace the notion that a black man, as he put it, "can't speak well without his teleprompter."

In addition, he blamed the President for numerous perceived misdeeds that had, in fact, been perpetrated by others (or that were simply the product of the right-wing imagination). It became increasingly clear that he had no affirmative beliefs. His focus was only upon what he hated; Barack Obama was symbolic for him, a convenient focal point for his copious and otherwise-incoherent rage. He had been fed by the likes of Rush and Sean and Billo, for the entirety of his life, a simple explanation for every problem that he faced, for every injustice that he discerned in the world: blame the evil libruls.

It saddened me that this was all there was to it, that there was not some greater, overarching philosophical basis for my co-worker's beliefs. But, in the end, that is what conservatism is: an appeal to our baser instincts, to the lesser angels of our natures, to anger, to hatred, to irrationalism.

And that is the chasm that separates us, in our nation and in the world: The thoughtful versus the superstitious, the modern versus the medieval, the rational versus the irrational.

And God help humanity if my side loses this battle.

Why So Angry?

2009-03-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

I get the feeling that I may be the only person in the U.S. that is not freaking out about the AIG bonuses, considering the near-universal pseudo-populist outcry currently facing our friends in the credit default swap market. But that may be because I've actually been paying attention for the last thirty years.

This Wall Street attitude of entitlement is unsurprisingly pro forma. It is nothing new; it is part and parcel of the "Greed Is Good," "the market is God" mentality that has dominated conservative economic "thought" since the Reagan Era. The basic premise of that ideology is that the market's "invisible hand" will always lead individual actors in the direction of the collective good, and that government can serve only as an impediment to the betterment of mankind.

And now, as during the Great Depression, that economic religiosity has been shown to be utterly lacking.

That doesn't stop Republicans from claiming be appalled by the greed of AIG. But let me say this loud and clear: THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME BEHAVIOR THAT YOU HAVE BEEN LAUDING FOR THE PAST 28 YEARS! This is its logical consequence, and if you are incapable of recognizing that reality, you have absolutely no place in the current public-policy debate. You are part of the problem, so stop pretending that your empty talking points are solutions.

It is time for conservatives to repent their sins or face political exile. There can be no in-between.

I Guess I Hate America

2009-03-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

Today I had the chance to watch "Erin Brockovich" on one of our movie channels, for the first time in a few years. This is one of those films that (as the right-wingers tell us) shows that Hollywood hates America. I enjoyed it immensely.

If you don't recall, the film recounts the title character's participation in a lawsuit involving the pollution of groundwater with hexavalent chromium by the energy company, Pacific Gas & Electric. It resulted in a tort settlement of over $300 million.

Now, I've heard many conservatives whine that hating corporations equals hating America, and movies like "Erin Brockovich" hate corporations. Thus, they are anti-American.

But why is it that disliking a corporation that breaks the law makes a person "anti-corporation," any more than disliking a person who breaks the law makes one a misanthrope? And why is it that the Right thinks that individuals are so much less important than corporations, as though we all have no purpose other than to serve as cogs in the industrial wheel?

Of course, what it really comes down to is a right-wing love affair with power. They kowtow to it, they worship it... and they believe that we all should merely hope to live off the table scraps that the powerful deign to give us. And if we all die from chromium poisoning, we should be grateful.

Me? I have nothing against corporations, but I feel that following the law is as incumbent upon them as it is upon me or you.

The difference between me and the Right, in the end, is that they are happy to be lap dogs, while I continue to be an independent human being.

Been A Long Time Since I Rock 'N' Rolled

2009-03-07T08:41:00.000-08:00

Last month I was lucky enough to get onstage for a reunion gig of the old band, Julio Goldstein -- the first time I'd performed musically in almost a year. Finally got photos of the evening in question: Massive crowd, drunken bar owner, many old fans; it was great fun. Makes me very glad that Jim and I are putting together a new band for the new year.

Rock on, my friends!

Wingnuts On Parade

2009-02-27T06:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a red-letter day: this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, convened in Washington, D.C. Billed as "the Largest Annual Gathering of Conservative Students, Activists and Policymakers," it is the right's lunatic fringe on full, proud and open display.

By all accounts, it's pretty much the nonsense you'd expect: Conservatives are the real Americans, Obama is taking us to hell in a handcart, science and rationalism are naughty, victimizing the powerless=Good, empowering the powerless=Evil, that sort of thing.

But one bit of reportage really caught my eye, this from Christopher Beam of slate.com:

...the next speaker, John Bolton... recalls the time during the campaign when Obama said Iran was just a "tiny" threat. "Is the loss of one American city picked at random—Chicago—is that a 'tiny' threat?" He delivers this line like Kevin Nealon's Subliminal Man. This brings the house down.

Let's, for the moment, disregard the fact that Bolton has misquoted President Obama on the "tiny threat" reference, and let's also disregard the apparent glee that "real Americans" feel at the thought of Chicago being destroyed, Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style. Instead, because it's been sticking in my craw for a while, let's focus upon the current right-wing monomania concerning Iran.

To the heart of the matter: Even assuming that Iran possessed both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of reliably delivering them to any given city in the U.S., why in the world would they launch said attack? It is a certainty that any such attack would result in the total annihilation of Iran, its reduction to a charred radioactive cinder, the deaths of a huge percentage of its populace. I find it hard to believe that this is what the leadership of Iran desires, and I am supremely confident that they are capable of "doing the math," so to speak.

"But, Wade," you say, "their President, Ahmadinejad, is a crazy fundamentalist and says terrible things about destroying Israel!" True enough... and he has about as much power in Iran as does John Bolton in the United States. The Presidency of Iran exists only to provide a certain amount of "democratic" sheen to what is a de facto dictatorship.

No, the real power in Iran resides in the person of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The military, the press and the judiciary all answer to Khamenei and are dependent upon him for their positions. And, though he is a despot, he is also a rational actor who wishes to retain his power, just as did the many Soviet Premiers who did not launch nuclear attacks upon the U.S. -- and for the same reason: their assured destruction, should they do so.

Though Iran is, indeed, a major regional power -- one that has been further empowered by the ill-advised U.S. invasion of Iraq -- and poses a direct threat to certain aspects of American policy in the Middle East, it is not about to start a nuclear war with the world's sole superpower. Either the right-wing wackos are too stupid to recognize this reality, or they are baselessly fear-mongering concerning Iran.

In either case, why would anyone listen to them?

Why Sports Matter To Us

2009-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago, Sports Illustrated reported that perennial baseball all-star Alex Rodriguez had used steroids earlier in this decade. Since then, the sports reporting establishment (especially the ESPN Hype Machine) has been going nuts, examining the story and every tiresomely conceivable repercussion of it, ad nauseum.

Why so much teeth-gnashing and garment-rending when most people take the availability and use of performance-enhancing drugs to be a matter of fact in the entertainment industry known as sports? I think that it has everything to do with how we Americans see sports in relation to ourselves and our own lives.

We are all familiar with the great American myth: Work hard, be honest, have a better idea (or realize an old idea in a better way), keep trying and everything will work out for you. The level playing field of America's marketplace will see that you rise to the top.

But, of course, that myth is nonsense, pure hokum. We have all seen cheaters prosper, have seen well-connected incompetents rewarded, have seen capable people discounted or discarded because they are from the wrong side of the tracks, are from the wrong family, are the wrong sex, or race, or age, or sexual orientation. That supposed "level playing field" is easily distorted by social prejudices and by the power that great accumulated wealth wields.

In harsh truth, you can strive all you want. Whether or not you succeed is, to a great degree, completely out of your hands.

But, in sport, we Americans like to believe that the great American myth still survives as an actuality. We want to believe that if you have done the hard work that enables you to hit a pitched ball consistently well, to adeptly shoot a basketball through a hoop, to throw a football with pinpoint accuracy, then your utility as a player will be obvious and you will be rewarded.

At its best, sport is an idealized version of America, in which the rules are the same for everyone once they step onto the playing field -- just as they are supposed to be (but never are) in our everyday lives.

And so when players (or coaches or officials) cheat, conspire with gamblers, take illicit performance-enhancing drugs, they are not merely breaking the rules of the game or the laws of the nation; they are betraying our own finely-constructed fantasy version of the nation. They are destroying our house-of-cards view of the United States of America.

Nothing can be so jolting as coming face-to-face with reality. No wonder we react so badly.

Jocularity, Jocularity

2009-02-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

Nope, not Photoshopped; it seems that hackers in several different places have taken to messing with road warning signs, alerting motorists to such looming dangers as raptors and zombies. Transportation officials have their undies in a bunch over it, of course, but I'd be willing to bet that these signs grab the attention of motorists to a far greater degree than do ones containing run-of-the-mill traffic messages.

What can I say? This just makes me deeply happy.

Prayer (And Hitler Comparison) Is The Last Refuge Of A Scoundrel

2009-02-11T16:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I spent a good hour and a half listening, as is often my wont, to Crazy Christian radio, this time in the person of Brannon Howse, host of "Worldview Matters." Said program is a show dedicated, it seems, to promoting a "biblical worldview" of all matters, as somehow magically divined by Mister Howse.

Yikes.

What first caught my attention was Howse's laughable, biblically-inspired "list" of parallels between Hitler's Germany and Obama's America. Kinda funny how the insane Nazi comparisons are brought out by wackos on both the far left and far right, depending upon just whom happens to be President at any given moment. Reagan? Nazi comparisons. G.H.W. Bush? The same. And Clinton... and G.W. Bush... and now Obama. The mind fairly boggles at the unoriginality of these idiots.

But that was, really, just your garden-variety wingnuttery; what really gave me pause was a listener phone call that Howse took. The gist of the call was the caller's literal belief that the Second Amendment authorizes citizens, should they see that the government is "doing wrong," to use firearms to shoot government officials.

Let me be crystal-clear: I AM NOT EXAGGERATING, NOR AM I MAKING THIS UP! If anything, I am using far more mild and rational language than the caller used.

Seriously, did someone just say that the Second Amendment tells you to kill the President, should you disagree with him or her?

I sat, mouth agape, speechless.

And what did Brannon Howse say to dissuade the caller from her psychotic belief? Not a damn thing. In fact, he said that it was, verbatim, "a good call."

This is modern Christianity? Jesus must currently be weeping tears of blood.

Heroes Come Cheap These Days

2009-02-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, so noted retard Michael Phelps got caught smoking the reefer. As a result, he's lost endorsements, been suspended by USA Swimming (whatever the hell that is) and is making the rounds on his apology tour.

Why the foofaraw about a bong hit? Because of all the "kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero," according to a statement from the swimming organization.

And that, of course, begs the obvious question: Why in the world is this moron a role model or a hero?

Sure, he can swim fast. Yippee. If I need to transport a small object out to the middle of a lake PDQ, and if there is no boat available, he'll be the first one I call. Short of that, I fail to see the utility of his particular skill set, much less the heroism in it.

Athletes are paid vast sums to play kids' games, and I understand that; the economic value of their endeavors is evident in the throngs they bring in to stadiums and arenas. I admire their physical prowess. But are they heroes? No.

If your child must have heroes, point him or her toward those who have demonstrated courage in their beliefs during trying times, toward those who do difficult, dangerous and necessary jobs for shit wages and without complaint. Toward a soldier, a teacher, a civil-rights organizer, a fireman, an artist.

Not toward the Michael Phelps' of the world.

The GOP Fiddles While Rome Burns

2009-02-06T16:01:00.000-08:00

February 4, 2009, News Item: Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, introduced an amendment to the stimulus bill that would have, had it passed, utterly stripped all actual economic stimuli from the bill -- instead turning it into another massive tax cut for the wealthy. The amendment was defeated, but with 36 of the 41 GOP Senators voting for it. That's 87.8 percent of all Republicans in the Senate.

87.8%!!!!

February 6, 2009, News Item: The United States economy lost 598,000 jobs in January, according to the Department of Labor. That makes 3,600,000 jobs lost since the official beginning of the current recession in December of 2007.

*****

As columnist and Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman has pointed out repeatedly, there are no monetary policy solutions left for the Fed to try; interest rates are already effectively at zero. We can attempt to vigorously stimulate the economy, or we can follow the lead of Herbert Hoover, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Can you guess which alternative the still-filibuster-capable Republicans prefer? I knew you could. They just continue on as though the last eight years never happened, as though this economic crisis descended upon the world from outer space, rather than being a direct result of the disastrous policies that they continue to attempt to foist upon us to an even greater degree.

And if we descend into economic oblivion, into a Second Great Depression? I'm sure that they believe that they can use it as an effective electoral tool, blaming it all on Barack Obama and the Democrats.

As far as I'm concerned, the only question left to ask is: "Why do conservatives hate America?"

Quick Tip

2009-01-28T16:23:00.000-08:00

Fantastic column today on The New York Times opinion page by one of my favorite writers, Bob Herbert.

There's the link. Read it. 'Nuff said.

Franken Wins? Coleman Wins? Either Way, Minnesota Loses.

2009-01-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

The current, Judicial phase of Minnesota's Senatorial election recount continues on at its glacial pace. Who knows, my state might actually have a second sitting Senator by the time the seat comes up for reelection in 2014. Maybe.

In the end, one would of course hope that all properly-cast Senatorial ballots will be counted, and may the candidate with the most votes win. But that's just the problem: one of these two giant douchebags ultimately has to win the election.

We have satirist Al Franken, a singularly unlikable carpetbagger who, when he trailed preliminarily at the polls, believed that "all Minnesotans' votes should be counted." But now that he has a slim recount lead, that deeply-held belief seems to have evaporated into thin air, replaced by his self-serving argument that rejected absentee ballots should not be reconsidered.

And then there's Normie Coleman: former Democrat who turned Republican when he felt the political winds of Minnesota shifting slightly to the right, former Bush Administration lockstep lackey who then tried to remake himself into a bipartisan hero after Democrats regained congressional control in the 2006 elections. Needless to say, his views on both electoral challenges and absentee ballots similarly changed after the recount's first phase went against him. (I have often argued that the man has no actual beliefs other than the belief that he should have power over his fellow citizens while suckling endlessly at the public teat.)

No matter which of these odious characters emerges as the nominal victor of this recount process, his less-than-six-year term will be marred by a cloud of illegitimacy, by the belief of a substantial fraction of Minnesotans that the Senator does not deserve the office he holds, that the fix was somehow in.

Until 2015, Minnesota seems destined to be represented by one-and-a-half Senators, at the most.

WANTED!

2009-01-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

Beyonce Knowles: For crimes against music.

Flipping through the channels on Inauguration night, I caught part of Beyonce's performance of the song "At Last," as the Obamas danced the first dance of the many, many Inaugural galas. I was blown away by the power and beauty of her voice in service of what is a truly timeless and well-crafted song.

That such talent should be wasted upon such drivel as... well, just about everything she's otherwise sung... is a travesty. Her voice is far too good to interpret dreck like "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)," a singularly annoying, tuneless and fatuous waste of three minutes and ten seconds -- time that I will never get back.

Sure, people listen to it... stupid people. To a certain extent, I would guess that some do so only because they can simultaneously think about what a hottie she is. My feeling, though, is that if you want to listen to music, then listen to music -- and if you want to see T&A, then go to a strip club. And never the twain should meet.

The Buggles were right: Video killed the radio star... and popular music.

So Darn Cute!

2009-01-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

Conservatives are just so precious! As Art Linkletter might put it, right-wingers say the darnedest things.

Their reaction to then-President-elect Obama's stimulus package proposal? Pure comedy gold! During their years in power, Republicans never met a spending bill they didn't adore. Expand government's scope drastically? Sure, why not? Squander our budget surplus upon giveaways for the ultra-wealthy, rather than paying down the national debt? Absolutely! An unnecessary and unfinanced war? What could be better?!

But now, with Democrats having been placed firmly in charge by the American people, righties have suddenly found religion on the subject of fiscal responsibility. After years of proclaiming (as Dick Cheney put it) that "deficits don't matter," Republicans are now awfully worried about all that darn money we collectively owe.

They essentially seem to be positing the notion that, during good economic times, government should spend like a drunken sailor, but, when the economy is performing badly, the Federal belt must be drastically tightened. See if you can get an economist to buy into that load of horse hockey.

*****

As of yesterday, the four-year right-wing whine concerning Barack Obama's Presidency began simultaneously with said Presidency, in the form of incredulity that any money would be spent on his inaugural gala. (The comical cognitive dissonance involved in decrying this expenditure after having embraced similar expenditures in 2001 and 2005 seems to have been lost on them.) And thus, presumably, begins the pattern that will dominate conservative "thought" for the next four years: "Whatever it is, I'm against it." (Thank you, Marx Brothers.)

*****

Today, I listened to the radio rantings of drug-addled Rush Limbaugh for a while. It was hilarious -- though unintentionally so. He spent well over an hour telling us, "his friends," that the end is near, that American democracy is doomed -- right up to the edge of warning us that the black helicopters were on their way.

And then he accused Democrats and their evil media conspirators of being purveyors of negativity!

I laughed so hard that I nearly wet myself.

*****

But, hey, no matter what may come, the next four years should be interesting, if only to watch the insulated and privileged on the right wallow in their own imagined victimhood, to listen to the endless whining.

Good times!

What Might Have Been

2009-01-19T18:16:00.000-08:00

Imagine, if you will, a January 2001 in which President-elect George W. Bush reaches out to his political adversaries in an attempt to heal the nation's political divide. In the week prior to inauguration day, he attends a dinner with numerous left-wing newspaper columnists and commentators; on the night before his inauguration, he holds a ceremony to fete Al Gore, his just-barely-defeated electoral adversary.

What Barack Obama has done in the weeks since his election to the Presidency is nothing less than extraordinary. Be they altruistically bipartisan, cynically political, or somewhere in between, his actions are nonetheless a radical departure from those of his predecessors. They are the actions that I would hope for from a President-elect.

George W. Bush had two opportunities to make himself the President of all of the United States -- his first, upon his inauguration; his second, upon the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Instead, he chose to employ Karl Rove's "50% plus one" strategy. In the first instance, he chose to ignore his adversaries entirely and to enact the policies favored by his far-right base. In the second, he chose not to ask sacrifice and introspection from the American people, but to ask us to shop obliviously at the mall while he committed war crimes in our names.

I say these things not as an accusation of George W. Bush, but as a lamentation. What could have been, had Bush been a bigger man, a man better-equipped for the times in which he found himself? What could have been, were he only the man that I so desperately wanted him to be... were he the man that we, as a nation, needed him to be?

What might have been?

The Right Shows Its True Colors?

2009-01-05T12:58:00.001-08:00

As an evil Lefty, I occasionally will jokingly refer to my right-winger friends as "fascist pigs." Just a little term of endearment, in the same way that they call me a "pinko commie bastard." All in fun.

That said, I had to laugh this week when I saw that some righties are very upset with the University of Washington for being the site of a memorial to the members of the Lincoln Brigade, Americans who fought against Francisco Franco's Fascist Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). You know the Nationalists -- they were the "bad guys" in the film Pan's Labyrinth; they were the ones who received overt material support from Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany; they were the ones who kept Spain from becoming a democracy until after Franco's death in 1975.

You see, it seems that some of the members of the Lincoln Brigade were members of the Communist Party. Not all, mind you; just some. But that is enough, in the twisted mentality of the Right, to make the memorial "a memorial to Communists." Never mind who truly comprised the Lincoln Brigade, nor who they fought. It is just more proof, in their minds, of how the intellectual and cultural "elites" are against American values, a bunch of commie sympathisers.

I do have to say that I find it rather amusing that the Right now seems to be in agreement with Hitler and Mussolini, just as they were back in the '30s and early '40s. Apparently, Fascism is a belief system whose spectre should be used as a bedtime story to frighten us into action against those pervasive "Islamofascists," but whose realities should be ignored or glossed over when convenient.

It's predictable, but still wonderfully and hilariously ironic.

Election Reaction, Part Three

2008-11-19T19:21:00.000-08:00

The last of my reactions to the events of November Fourth will involve California's Proposition Eight, a ballot initiative that served to restrict the definition of marriage in the Golden State to a "union between a man and a woman," as the parlance goes.

I cannot tell you just how disappointed I am with the Californian electorate. Amending a state constitution to actually restrict in perpetuity the rights of a minority group is a step that I would expect more of our backward neighbors, such as Wisconsin and the Dakotas, than of a supposedly cosmopolitan place such as California. (Though, truth be told, I find such an amendment to be distressing no matter where it might exist; state constitutions are far better-used limiting the powers of government than the rights of individuals.)

Ultimately, of course, this issue comes down to the desire of the Christian majority in our nation to force their ideas of propriety upon us all (and to whine mightily about "oppression" if they can, on the rare occasion, not so compel us). There is no recognition of the difference between, nor proper separation of, church and state -- for, in their estimation, church and state should be separate only when it is someone else's church that is in question, not theirs.

Never mind that the civil institution of marriage is something that is entirely discrete from similar ceremonies undertaken at houses of worship. Never mind that churches would not be required to perform, nor recognize, gay unions. No, because of the codification of primitive, ancient fears and prejudices, they feel that it is their holy right, their duty not merely to run their churches as they see fit, but to coerce all of society in the same direction. To tell us that our gay and lesbian neighbors, friends, and family members are something less than full citizens of our nation, that they are not really "people" in the same sense that we straight folk are, that it is in some twisted sense moral to treat them differently under the law.

Just in the same perverted way that persons who were Native American or African American were once treated as something less than fully human.

I take solace in the fact that, seemingly, there is a generational shift in attitudes under way -- Americans who are younger than I are far less likely to oppose gay civil rights than those who are older. Time, it would seem, is on the side of those of us who believe in equality.

Still, it gnaws at me. For, as Doctor King observed, an "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." While justice for gays and lesbians may be only a matter of time, it can not come soon enough.

Election Reaction, Part Two

2008-11-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, so, in an election-night conversation with my big sister, I was asked just what it was about Sarah Palin that torqued me off so badly. And my answer? That Palin, despite absolutely no knowledge of climatology, believes she understands the ideas behind global climate change better than do actual climatologists. That she sees the Bible not as a religious document, but rather as a biology text.

Does this make me a snob? Hell, yes, and proudly so.

I've previously commented upon the connection between big money interests and certain politicians' convenient "skepticism" concerning global climate change. As to the other subject:

Darwin's theory of natural selection (and, contrary to popular belief, he was not the man who came up with the idea of evolution; it was an observed reality long before he came upon the scene) is one of the world's great scientific ideas, at the very least on par with relativity, quantum mechanics and plate tectonics. It is the overarching theme that unites all of biological study. To deny it is as utterly ridiculous as to deny the existence of gravity or nuclear fusion, or to postulate that 1+1=29.

It was telling that, during the campaign, Palin decried the expenditure of public monies upon biological research involving, in her own words, "fruit flies, I kid you not, in Paris, France." The problem with said opposition? That academic work upon the Drosophila (remember that from high school biology, Governor?) genome has yielded major breakthroughs in autism research, for which Palin professes great support.

Were she paying attention, Sarah Palin might actually know that there has been extraordinary progress in the past decade in the fields of genetics and biochemistry, especially as they relate to evolutionary biology. That the deep connection between animals as different as fruit flies and humans is now more firmly elucidated than ever. That all living things are interrelated in ways more exquisitely beautiful than previously understood.

Instead, Governor Palin chooses ignorance, superstition and insularity.

That any candidate for public office might proudly (and successfully, in political terms) proclaim his or her illiteracy concerning an extraordinarily elegant scientific concept is a sad commentary upon a certain segment of the electorate.

You know who you are.

Election Reaction, Part One

2008-11-16T11:56:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know, it's been a while since I've posted. In part, that is because I've been trying to soak it all in, to figure out just what has happened over the last two weeks. Here goes:

On election night, I held it together until I got back to my hotel room in Eau Claire; then, Barack Obama came onstage and delivered his first address as President-elect. I began weeping like a child.

Why did I cry? After all, I've previously seen plenty of other candidates -- ones I've fully supported -- successfully elected, yet never shed a single tear.

Certainly, there was the historic nature of the moment; after some of the horrible shit I've witnessed in my lifetime, I never dreamed that I would see an America in which a black man could be elected President. But, more than anything, it was the content of the speech: Barack Obama said, in a few minutes, so many of the things that I've been desperately hoping to hear from our President for the past 94 months. He plainly stated that our national difficulties are a collective matter, and that they would be overcome only through collective effort and sacrifice. He sought to unite Americans in common cause, not to divide us by race, by religiosity, by ideology. Barack Obama actually asked something of us, and, in so doing, treated us as though we are full and equal citizens of a free nation -- not merely consumers in service of an all-important economic machinery.

President-elect Obama has not yet assumed office. There are many problems that he, and we, face over the next four years. But by treating his fellow citizens like the adults they are (or should be) -- by appealing to the better angels of our natures -- he has already made a good start.

My Challenge To You

2008-11-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a hard-fought election season, and tomorrow, November Fourth, it all comes to fruition. Obviously, if you read this blog at all, you know exactly whom I would prefer to win the Presidential race.

But, while it is easy to get caught up in partisanship, the basic truth is that we have far greater commonalities than we do differences, that there is much more that unites us than divides us. For we are all Americans.

I cannot pretend to have a crystal ball; I do not know who will win this election. But, no matter who wins, we face numerous challenges, both near- and long-term, as a nation. And we will have to face them together.

If Senator John McCain is elected tomorrow, if that is the will of the People, then he will be my President just as much he is the President of our nation's most stalwart Republican. And he will deserve the same loyalty that I would give a President Barack Obama, the same opportunity to make his case.

That is not to say that I will never disagree with the new President's actions, no matter whom is elected. But it will not be the result of "McCain Derangement Syndrome," nor "Obama Derangement Syndrome." It will be because I have a legitimate disagreement with his positions or policies -- just as it has been with the current Administration.

And I would expect nothing less of my fellow citizens. That is my challenge to you all.

Now get out and vote your conscience!

Desperation

2008-10-31T18:21:00.000-07:00

So, this is a McCain acolyte making yet more unsubstantiated and insane charges against Senator Obama. Yet he can't quite bring himself to speak the words. What was he instructed to say? "Osama Bin Laden?"

The Obamamercial

2008-10-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

I just watched the half-hour Obama campaign ad. Couldn't help but notice that there were no frantic allegations of John McCain being connected to terrorists, no ugly innuendo, no angry attacks. Instead, we saw a calm, thoughtful and well-reasoned case laid out as to why Senator Obama is the right choice as our next President.

Exactly the sort of well-thought-out argument that has been conspicuously absent from the Republican nominee's operations.

Decency. Reason. Steadiness. Exactly the reasons that I, in my absentee ballot, cast my vote for Barack Obama. I would urge you to do the same.

The Strange Case Of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher

2008-10-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio -- a.k.a. "Joe The Plumber" -- is illustrative of everything that is wrong with the presidential campaign of John McCain. Since last week's debate, Joe The Plumber has become a personal talisman, an emblem, for the Republican nominee concerning his economic religiosity (calling it a philosophy would infer far more thought than has actually been applied to the subject).

See, Joe Wurzelbacher confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, purportedly concerned about the Democrat's economic plan. “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year,” he told Senator Obama, identifying himself as a plumber. “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?”

McCain seized upon one small sentence in Obama's answer -- "I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” -- as proof positive that Obama is out of touch with the entrepreneurial aspirations of the American people, that his proposed tax policy will hurt average Americans.

The only problem with McCain's assertions? They are based upon a lie. Or several.

Joe The Plumber, as it turns out, isn't actually a plumber. He has no plumbing license. He isn't about to buy the business for which he works; the fact that has a state tax lien upon his home makes that a practical impossibility. Even if he were to miraculously do so, the business doesn't make the amount he claimed; his employer reports that he is lucky to clear $120,000 annually (and if Joe were to purchase the business, he would probably clear less, considering the fact that he would have to employ an actual plumber). Wurzelbacher, in any conceivable reality, would be helped by Obama's tax plan. And it would seem that John McCain vetted Joe The Plumber about as well as he vetted Sarah The MILF.

Yet this is the perception of the Republican Party faithful: That "average Joes" somehow manage to make a quarter-million dollars a year without breaking a sweat (perhaps believing so because everyone that they know does). That it is somehow common or easy for a schlub making close to minimum wage to move into the highest marginal tax bracket (the economic statistics say otherwise). That the American Dream hasn't receded from the grasp of most Americans over the past 25 years of right-wing policies (again, the statistics say otherwise).

We live in a time when conservative pseudo-economics has held sway for over a quarter-century, when real wages continue falling for working people, when it becomes more and more likely that a working person will not have health insurance coverage, and when the disparity of wealth in America is at its highest point since 1929. We cannot afford to be duped by the fool's gold of the great right-wing lie.

Even when it is propounded by a previously-honorable man like John McCain.

My New Favorite Word

2008-10-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

This post has been on the back burner a while (due to my preoccupation with electoral politics), so it's slightly dated. We are sorry for any inconvenience. Anyhoodles...

About the time that the film Tropic Thunder was released on August 13, protests broke out concerning a character's use of the word, "retard." It was a reflexive protest, divorced from any sense of context or appreciation of genre. Exactly the sort of thing that is associated in today's society with left-wing craziness.

But let me be absolutely clear: Nothing is more illiberal than political correctness. At its root, any attempt to control language is an attempt to control thought. In a free society, that is unacceptable.

To quote one of my favorite authors, Robert A. Heinlein:

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."

In these times, there is much about the state of free speech that gives me pause. Just two examples: On one hand, hate-crime legislation that attempts to punish not one's actions, but one's purported thoughts as somehow divined by a jury; on the other, attempts to limit speech on private subscription services such as cable and satellite radio and TV, done in the name of decency.

Those on the far left and the far right seem to have only one thing in common: their desire to save me from myself.

And so, in honor of the Tropic Thunder protests, I have a new favorite word. That word is, "retard." As in, "Michael Phelps' latest interview makes me think he's a total retard."

Take that, thought police.

Off The Deep End

2008-10-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

Lunatic fringe
I know you're out there
-from the song "Lunatic Fringe" by Red Rider

I was "lucky" enough to recently be exposed to the not-quite-sane philosophies of two lunatic fringers, from two wildly divergent points of view. It was an experience.

The conservative in question took the right's tendency toward self-righteousness to its illogical extreme, positing himself the sole arbiter of Good and Evil in the world (and you can guess which alternative he thought himself to be). He declared any disagreement (no matter how small) with any of President Bush's decisions (no matter how ill-fated) to be the result of BDS (that's Bush Derangement Syndrome) and thus invalid. And liberals? They all, every single one, hate America and want our troops dead.

The blind rage was astounding and frightening.

*****

The leftie wacko started out with an oldie but a goodie: George W. Bush is the real terrorist! Then came the inevitable follow-up: The 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by some combination of Bush, Cheney, the CIA, the NSA and the Mossad. And our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq? Well, it's all about oil, pipelines and the military-industrial complex, of course.

Again, mindless, blind rage.

*****

Nothing gonna stop them as the day follows the night
Right becomes wrong, the left becomes the right
-from the song "Ride Across The River" by Dire Straits

It certainly is easy to marginalize people of this sort, to simply tell them to don their tin-foil hats until the voices go away. But upon further reflection, I can't help but think: There, but for the grace of God, go I. It is doubtless that I have strong points of view, and that I can often get rather worked up about matters political. Is it really that great of a step from where I am to where they are?

Fortunately, I have my wife. She, when necessary, is more than capable of letting me know what a blowhard I can be, and is diligent in telling me when I'm full of shit. She is, as John Adams said of Abigail, "my ballast." Has been for over 23 years.

So, thank you, Barb. I love you. God knows how far off the deep end I'd be without you.

Separated At Birth?

2008-10-13T18:29:00.001-07:00

Okay, okay, so Andrea Mitchell isn't quite as pasty-skinned as the Joker... and she isn't as flamboyantly dressed... but it's pretty damned close.

We Are Forced To Reap What You Have Sown

2008-10-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

It was nice yesterday to briefly see the old John McCain, the one I used to like, the one I would've considered voting for. At Friday's town-hall-style rally in Lakeville, Minnesota, the Republican presidential nominee was forced to actually defend Barack Obama against an ugly mob that seemed about ready to form a lynching party (and doesn't that make me proud to be a Minnesotan!).

"He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues," McCain admonished his supporters in reference to Obama. "I admire Senator Obama. I want everyone to be respectful."

The mob's response? Boos and catcalls.

While I am happy that Senator McCain was willing to risk alienating his base in order to tamp the insanity down, this particular brand of madness is a direct result of the McCain campaign's actions over the past several weeks -- actions that seemed specifically designed to elicit just such a response.

Running mate Sarah Palin has been telling the GOP faithful that Obama sees America as "imperfect enough that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." During her introductions at these events, it has been common practice to emphasize that Obama's middle name is "Hussein" in order to underscore his supposed otherness.

McCain himself has made his disdain for Obama quite apparent at the two presidential debates, refusing to even look at the Democratic nominee and referring to Obama as "that one." He has attempted to stoke racial fears by calling Obama a "man of the streets." And he has remained tellingly silent at other events, during which supporters have called Obama "a terrorist" and screamed "kill him" and "off with his head."

So, while it is gratifying that you have finally decided to do the right thing, Senator McCain, I think it is more than fair to point out that your supporters have merely followed your lead. We are reaping what you have sown, and the end result is a further poisoning of the American political process.

McCain's Plans For Your Health Insurance

2008-10-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

Interesting column by Paul Krugman today in the New York Times. It includes this rather disturbing recent quote from John McCain:

“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

Doing for health care what we've done for the banking industry? Super. Sounds great.

And if you don't believe me (or Doctor Krugman) as to the veracity of this quote, you can read McCain's own words here, in the piece he wrote for Contingencies magazine.

The more rope fed the McCain/Palin ticket, it seems, the more eager they become to hang themselves.

Hilarity!

2008-10-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Take that, tree-hugging pussies.

A Film Worth Watching

2008-10-04T17:25:00.001-07:00

Today I was able to finally watch the much-talked-about documentary, Taxi To The Dark Side. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the summer, it is nonetheless well worth seeing for any concerned and engaged denizen of this planet.

I know, I know: some people will call me an America-hating monster for ever letting such treasonous photons enter my eyeballs. I would beg to differ.

Certainly, it would be easy to blind myself to the harsh realities of this world. I would wish nothing more than to believe that the U.S. is an unadulterated force for good, that our actions are always true and righteous. But I am no longer eight years old; those fantasies have been left behind as surely as have my G.I. Joe figures.

The world is not a simple, easily-explained place, unless you are a mental midget. And Taxi To The Dark Side gives -- or should give -- all of us things to ponder about the nature of our nation's place in the world, about the disparity between our purported ideals and our realities, and about what has been inflicted upon the servicemen and servicewomen whom we ask to do our dirty work.

Veep Picks and Facial Tics

2008-10-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

So, the big V.P. debate happened. Yippee. My impressions:

First of all, it seemed pretty much pro forma; nothing that was going to change any one's mind, one way or the other. Each candidate made a minor gaffe or two, and stuck to the predictable talking points.

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It says a great deal about the recent difficulties of Sarah Palin that her mediocre performance at this debate was hailed as a major triumph: At least she didn't have a Tina Fey-worthy moment! Never underestimate the power of lowered expectations.

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Do you think that, during debate prep, Palin was told to use the word "maverick" repeatedly? Good lord, she beat that word like a rented mule.

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Just how many of moderator Gwen Ifill's questions did Sarah Palin actually bother to answer? Certainly not too many; she was far more concerned with getting back to her prepared talking points.

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What was the deal with Palin's bizarre facial tic that has, quite charitably, been called a "wink?" She looked a bit like Diane Chambers of Cheers fame... Maybe this is a signal that Palin, too, needs to be "written out of the series?"

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Or maybe it was a signal to the far-right faithful that all this talk about reform and regulation is just talk. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Don't worry, oligarchs and plutocrats, once we're elected nothing will change. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat.

*****

One of the minor irritants in this election season is Governor Palin -- she, of the seven-figure net worth; she, who owns an airplane; she, whose RNC jacket cost more than I take home in a month -- referring to herself as "Joe six-pack." The woman's down-home appeal is about as credible as a celebrity rehab stint.

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But the single most telling (and frightening) moment of the evening for me was Palin's assertion that Dick Cheney is right, that the role of the Vice President is somehow constitutionally malleable to fit whichever investigation or whatever oversight you're currently attempting to dodge. The Constitution, as well as over two centuries of tradition and practice, gives the V.P. a very narrow set of duties: essentially, breaking ties in the Senate and succeeding the President, should the need arise. That's it. We don't need another "Imperial Vice Presidency." Good grief.

Dubya's Stalker Strikes Again

2008-10-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Gosh, I sure am glad to be represented by that woman.

Mixed Signals

2008-09-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Seen at a towing company near New Hampton, Iowa...

Another Glimpse Into Republican Economic "Thought"

2008-09-21T02:01:00.000-07:00

The travails of Wall Street, and subsequent massive Federal bailout, that dominated the week's news cycle bring to mind a couple of thoughts:

1. "Taxation and regulation are counterproductive and immoral." That's the mantra that has been chanted at us by supply-siders for the last quarter-century-plus, and it has come to dominate the economic debate (to such extent as it exists) in our electoral politics. With it comes the explicit assertion that, if we just leave the ultra-wealthy to their own devices, it'll bring shared prosperity to us all.

The past week's events have quite clearly and effectively refuted that argument.

2. "Government isn't the solution, it's the problem." So they tell us... Except, apparently, when government can be manipulated into rescuing plutocrats from their own foibles, at the expense of the rest of us.

That's the dirty little secret of modern Movement Conservatism. Despite the rhetorical nobility of its supposed belief system, it is really just a well-organized and well-funded attempt to undo the egalitarian gains of the New Deal -- to return wealth solely into the hands of those who truly deserve it.

That deeply-held, laissez-faire conviction of Conservatism is readily abandoned when it is inconvenient, thus exposing the sad reality: Conservatives actually believe in nothing, other than their own right to hold power, both economic and political, over others.

Thanks, SNL

2008-09-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Funny. Uncanny resemblance, too.

What This Election Is Really About

2008-09-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

Son Number Two -- that'd be Tristan, for those of you scoring at home -- has been working at fundraising for the Obama campaign for the better part of a year. And damn near every time that I see him, he recounts another phone call in which he is berated for being a "nigger lover," or some other such ignorant and ridiculous statement.

It makes me despair for the state of the Union.

Since more than 80% of voters believe that the Republicans have our nation heading in the wrong direction, but the presidential polls are virtually a dead heat, what does that say about our nation's electorate?

All of you readers who so fervently (and so irrationally) oppose Senator Obama's candidacy: just think about the stereotypes, both overt and covert, with which you're being bombarded... and the types of persons with whom you're crawling in bed, politically.

With what type of person do you want to be aligned?

Sunday's Quick Hits

2008-09-14T05:51:00.000-07:00

My Minnesota Golden Gophers are 3-0 after beating the mighty Montana State Bobcats yesterday. Can you say, "Rose Bowl?" (Irony alert.) Rose Bowl, baby!

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It was quite amusing this week to hear Sarah Palin tout her foreign-policy credentials to ABC's Charlie Gibson: Gee whiz, you can actually see Russia from some places in Alaska! By that "logic," my coworker, Keith, who travels up to within a couple miles of the Canadian border on his weekly route, is eminently qualified to be Secretary of State.

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Also amusing was the reaction of the right-wing punditry to Palin's incoherence concerning The Bush Doctrine: "Why, 90% of Americans don't know what that doctrine is!" True enough. But what ever happened to the idea that we're supposed to be electing people who are actually more capable and better-informed than the average Joe? (And, since an ignorant truck driver like me knows what The Bush Doctrine is, I think it's fair to expect, at the very least, the same level of knowledge from a vice presidential nominee.)

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Does the McCain campaign believe that, if you repeat a lie (Palin "stopping the bridge to nowhere") endlessly, then it becomes true? Are they counting on the Liberty Valance Effect?

More importantly, is the American electorate stupid enough to believe it? I keep saying it, but only because it's true: If you continue to vote for this shit, then you get exactly what you deserve. (I just wish you wouldn't keep inflicting it upon those of us who are actually paying attention.)

Give Me That Old-Time Religion

2008-09-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

I have a weakness that I must confess to you: During my travels about the countryside, I love occasionally listening to religious radio. I find it entertaining and downright hilarious! Whether it's James Dobson advising a wife that she should sex her husband up whenever he demands it, or Jimmy Swaggart verbally tiptoeing around his... er... working girl incident, or the self-righteous pronouncements of any of dozens more holy hucksters, it's always good for a laugh.

But there is a disturbing thing that I have noticed over the years: Even though these people call themselves "Christians," they really don't give much of a damn about Jesus.

Oh, sure, there are plenty of references to "Christ, crucified," but the things that Jesus is supposed to have actually said and done while he was here, in the flesh, on planet Earth, are routinely ignored. There's just not much reference to Matthew, Mark, Luke nor John; instead these folks are overwhelmingly consumed by a love for the writings of Paul - a guy who didn't even meet the historical Jesus. They ought to call themselves "Paulians" rather than "Christians."

Jesus the man? He was too concerned with ideas like social justice and forgiveness and turning the other cheek (the man dined with tax collectors, for the love of God!). I mean, jeez, that sort of thing takes introspection and hard work! Paul, on the other hand, was far more into being a self-serving moralistic prig -- just the kind of red meat that Evangelicals can really sink their teeth into. No, for them, Jesus is much more safely experienced through the amorphous ambiguity of the Holy Spirit, where he can be reduced to a cypher, a symbol, and then ignored when he is inconvenient.

I've watched the growth of this sort of "Christianity" (and the slow dwindling of older, more dignified churches) over the course of my life, and have come to believe that this phenomenon is strongly tied to demographic trends; I see it as a natural outgrowth of the narcissism of the Baby Boom generation. Churches are now something that I shop for to find the "right" one for me. I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

And to hell with everyone else (just ask the fans of the "Left Behind" series). Even Jesus, the man.

Why Does John McCain Piss Me Off So Much?

2008-09-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

...It's a question I ask myself. What is it about his candidacy that makes me see red?

I guess that it's really about disappointment. A year ago, I could easily have seen myself voting for John McCain. He is, after all, a genuine American war hero; he's a very likable public figure, capable of rare self-deprecation; he had shown an ability to learn from his own mistakes (can you say "Keating Five?") by co-authoring campaign reform legislation; he had refused to pander to the crazy religious right, correctly calling them "agents of intolerance;" he had been more pragmatic than doctrinaire on numerous policy positions, including climate change and progressive taxation.

But, in the last year, much about John McCain has changed for the worse; the man has turned against much of what made him worth believing in. He started taking his economic outlook from the Republican orthodoxy (in the persons of Phil Gramm, et al) rather than from Main Street; he began kowtowing to the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson; he abandoned policy for personality, honesty for obfuscation, straight talk for double talk.

As a proud independent, I have been let down by the Senator. Look, I understand the reality that he had to win the Republican nomination, and honesty doesn't fit into that equation. But these seemingly endless inconsistencies make me wonder if John McCain has any beliefs at all.

And that's something I can't waste a precious vote upon.

She Will Destroy Us All

2008-09-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

No, not Britney Spears, nor Paris Hilton, nor Kim Kardashian, nor even Sarah Palin. She's the Kinetico girl... and I see her damned image everywhere:

I must admit, she freaks me out. Part of it, I suppose, is the fact that she's a prepubescent girl, all dolled up, JonBenet-style. The creepiness factor is through the roof.

But there's more to it. Look into her eyes. Really look. They are pools of inky darkness. She is Damien's little sister, and she is here to devour my soul.

An empty, formless void looms.

The MILF Speaks! Republicans Hear What They Want To.

2008-09-05T17:54:00.000-07:00

Listening to Sarah Palin speak Wednesday night at the RNC, I couldn't help but be unimpressed. Her speech said essentially nothing, and certainly nothing new; it was just the same old cultural warfare, decrying us "elites" who believe in crazy notions like evolution and gravity. A couple of convenient lies, some snarkiness, but no substance. No policy. Nothing.

Others, though, seemed much more impressed. In part, this is probably because I always listen to speeches, rather than watch them; I do not wish to be distracted by empty images when I could actually be hearing the words. So, while most people were immersing themselves in Palin's warm MILFiness (and, doubtless, seeing the TV cut to adoring looks from the party faithful), I was left with her tired phrases, delivered in that high-pitched, nasal Alaskan whine.

But there is more to it than just imagery. In post-speech interviews, party delegates were utterly, over-the-top effusive in their praise, some even calling her the next Ronald Reagan. So why this wide gap between my perceptions and theirs? The answer, I feel, lies in what Sarah Palin is not.

You see, each of John McCain's other potential running mates was, to a greater or lesser degree, more of a known commodity. And each had some potential difficulty looming with one or another of the GOP's core factions. Palin, by contrast, is not burdened with much of a national reputation. She is a blank canvas upon which Republicans of every stripe can project all of their fondest hopes and dreams. And that is just what they're doing.

Now, in order to be elected, all McCain and Palin need to do is keep us (and especially the press) distracted for the next two months with red herrings -- you know, stuff like endless discussions of pregnant teenage daughters -- and we'll never have to think about pesky things like her record, nor who she really is.

Identity Politics Or Bust!

2008-09-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

One need not wonder what John McCain was thinking when he named MILF Sarah Palin as his running mate. It is as utterly transparent as it is insulting.

In the aftermath of Joe Biden's announcement as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, it was mildly amusing to watch members of the right-wing media feign sympathy for the plight of poor, poor Hillary Clinton. After nearly two decades of using her as one of their favorite punching bags, did they now truly feel that Senator Clinton had been unfairly slighted? I think that both you and I know the answer to that question.

And now, with the choice of Palin, we see what all those distributed talking points were leading up to: The GOP believes that cranky, stridently Clinton-supporting PUMAs* will now flock to the Republican ticket because, like Hillary, Alaska's first-term governor happens to have a vagina. That is, apparently, all it takes -- never mind the fact that Palin has roughly the same worldview as Strom Thurmond.

Once, not long ago, John McCain didn't believe in pandering to identity politics. But how quickly things change. I sincerely hope that those who are targets of McCain's cynical maneuverings still have enough of their wits about them to know when they are being treated like idiots -- and to be appropriately angry.

*PUMA = Party Unity, My Ass

Connections

2008-08-29T11:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while in central Iowa, I caught part of Rush Lamebrain's show. And, from what was said, it seems that Barack Obama is a lying monster, bent on destroying our liberties, on creating a totalitarian regime right here in America.

At least that's what the hillbilly-heroin addict would have us all believe.

This is what much of the national political debate has devolved into. These whack jobs can't merely express the idea that they have some disagreements with Obama's policy; instead, they must demonize the man, turn him into something other than human.

*****

In other news, three different drug-addled morons were arrested Sunday in Colorado after making racially-tinged threats toward Obama. The idiots in question were equipped with scoped rifles, walkie-talkies and a bulletproof vest.

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Whether or not there is a connection between members of the right-wing hate machine and those who wish to turn their bile into action will be left as an exercise for the reader.

What I Believe

2008-08-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I spend a good deal of time on this blog writing about just a few of the Right's many misdeeds. And that will certainly inform you of the things that I am against. But I realized this weekend that it is just as important, if not more so, to make an affirmative statement of the things that I do believe in. Thus, today's post:

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Ultimately, what does it mean to be a liberal? To me, at its most basic level, it is a philosophical disposition toward social justice. I believe in the proposition that our society should provide opportunity for all of its citizens, not merely the wealthy, white and well-connected, that success should be much more a function of individual achievement than the circumstance of one's birth.

Furthermore, I believe that government has a positive role to play in creating such an egalitarian society. Historically, it is not the "default mode" of unrestrained capitalism to create the sort of society in which most people want to live; instead, it usually produces a world of vast inequality and crass, shameless plutocracy -- the type of world into which American society is now backsliding. The exception, of course, is during the period in which the reforms of the New Deal held sway. Government action, it seems, is the only way to blunt the excesses of the market. I take great inspiration from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's assertion that "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

I believe in the necessity of a social safety net -- not a system of handouts that create dependency, but a helping hand that gets families through hard times, creates opportunities for upward mobility, and safeguards citizens in their twilight years.

I believe in the power of the free market.

I believe in the power of regulation, law, and social mores to properly restrain that market. Corporations are neither inherently evil (as many on the left would say) nor inherently good (as many on the right assert); they are utterly amoral entities that exist solely to produce profit. Corporate behavior that benefits the social good is assured only when bad acts result in monetary loss.

I believe in substantive health care reform. Of developed nations, the United States currently spends the most health care dollars per capita, with the worst statistical results and the highest percentage of uninsured individuals. We can, and must, do better.

I believe in the Constitution of the United States -- not as the static document that the Textualists and Strict Constructionists would have us believe (thus rendering it a museum piece from our agrarian past), but as a living document that speaks directly to this post-industrial age.

I believe in the strict separation of church and state. Government has no business either promoting or discouraging any particular supernatural belief system, nor the practice thereof. The First Amendment's "Establishment Clause" is clear on this issue, and remains as relevant today as it was 217 years ago (if not more so).

I believe in fiscal responsibility. It is imperative that government start spending within its means and that our national debt be paid down. The ephemeral pleasure of today's tax cuts does not justify the massive liability that we are passing on to future generations.

I believe in active and strong government oversight. Tax dollars must be seen as a precious resource to be used as effectively and sparingly as possible while still accomplishing those tasks deemed necessary.

I believe in tax code simplification and reform, with new classifications aimed at encouraging small business growth.

I believe that elections must be decoupled from money if we are to save American democracy. In an egalitarian society, the expenditure of currency is not synonymous with free speech, and until the courts are forced (through legislation or Constitutional amendment) to recognize that fact, our nation will remain a place where "the loudest live to trample on the least," to quote Don Henley.

I believe that all children have a right to a sound public education that will prepare them for the rigors of citizenship and the challenges of our globalized economy.

I believe that, unlike now, all U.S. citizens should have a Constitutionally defined right to vote.

I believe in full citizenship and equal treatment under the law for all Americans, regardless of race, religion, age, gender or sexual orientation.

I believe in a military that is strong, efficient, well-trained, well-equipped, and used only when absolutely necessary. The young men and women who serve our country are our dearest asset; they should not be placed in harm's way haphazardly, nor should they be discarded and forgotten when their service is done.

I believe in a foreign policy that is consistent, reasoned, humble, generous, and grounded in reality.

I believe in the sanctity of human life -- not merely those not yet born, but all human life. Far too many of those who call themselves "Pro-Life" nonetheless believe that it should be open season upon the poor, the weak, and the disenfranchised once they leave the uterus.

Lastly, I believe in reasoned debate - the idea that reasonable people can respectfully disagree without questioning each other's patriotism.

Hillary Revisited

2008-08-16T06:09:00.000-07:00

This is what I heard yesterday on the radio:

"Our philosophy, whenever we publish a book, is that there will be ten to maybe a hundred times as many people who hear about the book, compared to the number of people who actually go out and buy the book."

"Our approach and our goal is always to make sure that we use a book as a platform for an author to get out his or her message. And, by getting out that message on the media, whether it's TV or radio or print or electronic media, um, I think that gives us a sort of multiplier effect on whatever the message of the book is."

Those quotes come directly from Marji Ross, President and Publisher of Regnery Publishing, the house that gave us such hatchet jobs as Unfit For Command and The Case Against Barack Obama. If you don't believe me, you can listen to her speak those words here.

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In the news: Jerome Corsi, coauthor of Unfit For Command, has recently released a new tome, entitled The Obama Nation, that attacks Barack Obama, in part by citing Corsi's own previous works as well as unsubstantiated right-wing blog posts. The Obama Nation has risen to the top of The New York Times Best Seller List, thanks in large part to bulk sales to right-wing groups that wish to draw attention to the book. The dubious work has been dutifully shilled by the Right's many media outlets.

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From June, 2006: The investigation into the misdeeds of right-wing lobbyist Jack Abramoff shows that conservative think tanks, including Americans For Tax Reform and The National Center for Public Policy Research, helped Abramoff launder his dirty money.

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From January, 2007: Republican Senator Rick Santorum, immediately upon leaving office (after suffering defeat in his 2006 re-election bid), joins the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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From October, 2005: Longtime Republican Bruce Bartlett was fired from his position at the conservative think tank, The National Center For Policy Analysis, after daring to criticize George W. Bush in book form, thus showing that no dissension can be allowed in the ranks of Movement Conservatives.

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Fact is, I could go on all day, posting citations that show the interconnectedness of Movement Conservatism's many organs, the rewards that await those who faithfully serve the movement, and the disciplinary actions that will be taken against those who fall off the wagon. But those already cited serve well enough to illustrate my point: Hillary Clinton was right.

Since the then-First Lady talked about a "vast right-wing conspiracy" in 1998, she has been routinely dismissed and ridiculed, but the realities of American politics are impossible to wish away. (Believe me, I tried to discount the idea as mere paranoia, but, ultimately, the links become too obvious to ignore.)

It starts with huge moneyed interests, such as the Koch, Bradley, Olin, and Scaife foundations (to name just a few). That money supports the rest of the movement:

The conservative think tanks, including The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, The Cato Institute, etc.
The magazines of the right-wing intelligentsia: The American Spectator, National Review, The Weekly Standard, et al.
Daily rightist newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times (which is controlled by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon; in the most enjoyable of ironies, the Christian Right is joined to such apostates as the Moonies!).
Rightist publishers such as Regnery, cited above.
Electronic media outlets like The Drudge Report, Fox Noise and the Excrement In Broadcasting Network.
The plethora of crazy fundamentalist churches across the nation that ignore the IRS' rules about involvement in electoral politics.
And, of course, the Republican Party itself.

This is the massive network that uses its clout to manipulate many of you into voting for a movement that will do nothing to assuage your numerous cultural anxieties, but will ensure that your children are worse off than you economically. And this is what Movement Conservatism is all about.

I've said it before: If this is what you continue to vote for, it is exactly what you deserve.

The Politics Of Conflation

2008-08-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, John Edwards finally admitted the truth of a story that had been percolating just under the political surface for several months: He had an extramarital affair in 2006. About the mindset that led to his affair, Edwards stated, in part, "...I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic."

Needless to say, John Edwards' political future is now nonexistent.

This is regrettable. Regrettable because Edwards was one of the few candidates actually talking about the vast economic disparities in our nation. Because of the public embarrassment that has been visited upon his already-suffering family. And because we will now see the inevitable Republican tactic in response: The conflation of the message with the messenger.

You see, the GOP would have us all believe that, because John Edwards is human, then the issues that he champions must be bogus. That, since Edwards schtupped a videographer, then people can be convinced that there is no truth to the actual statistics showing the divergence of outcomes between those who must work their way out of the economic hole into which they were born, and those who were born at the top of society's mountain.

Just look at the amount of time and energy that the Right still spends heaping scorn and ridicule upon Al Gore; if Gore can be made to look foolish, then it casts doubt upon the idea of global warming, climatological data be damned. And the ultra-wealthy, for whom the political right works, can then continue reaping the short-term economic rewards of fossil-fuel use.

Yet another illustration is last week's orchestrated ridicule of Barack Obama. You see, Obama made the mistake of stating the simple fact that basic conservation measures, such as all Americans driving cars that have properly-inflated tires and properly-tuned engines, would save us far more oil than offshore drilling could provide. But the Right used its media might to turn reality upside-down, and no one seemed to question the fact that they were, essentially, telling us that it would be a good idea for each of us to under-inflate our tires and cut a couple of spark plug wires.

That is just how stupid the Republicans and their media shills believe us to be. If we continue to vote for the idiot with whom we'd rather have a beer (or, in Dubya's case, snort a line), then a continuation of the current state of governmental incompetence is exactly what we deserve.

Prostitution And The Presidency

2008-08-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

So... Yesterday I was crossing the wilds of South Dakota and listening to SDPR when a local report came on, detailing the excitement of John McCain's appearance at the Buffalo Chip Campground during the Sturgis rally. The featured audio clip included a befuddled McCain explaining that he had tried to talk his wife, Cindy, into entering the Miss Buffalo Chip pageant. Hmmm.

As a former resident of the Black Hills area, and as the husband of someone who worked security at the Buffalo Chip, I have some familiarity with the Miss Buffalo Chip pageant. And let's just say that what happens during the contest is something other than Jesus-lovin', GOP-sanctioned fun for the whole family (unless you happen to be David Vitter.) Just the type of stuff you might expect from a biker rally.

Which brings up a couple of thoughts.

Eeewwwww! About the last thing that I want to see is that hag (with all her cosmetic-surgery scars) in various states of undress.
Wow, John McCain feels so desperate now that he will do pretty much anything to get elected. Even serve as his own wife's pimp.

Yikes.

Rethinking The Hillbilly Gunslinger

2008-08-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

The whole, never-ending Brett Favre saga that has unfolded over the past six months has been simultaneously gripping and tiresome, evoking equal parts fascination and nausea. But, I must say, recent events in this drama have certainly made me rethink my position on Ol' Number Four.

Previously, my view of Favre was that he was a singularly talented, but none-too-bright, drug-addicted hick with little respect for the integrity of the game (as witnessed by his record-breaking flop for Michael Strahan). But now, after acting like an utter jackass for the better part of a month, he has somehow managed to maneuver the Packers organization into:

A) Offering him twenty million dollars, spread out over the next ten years, to remain retired.
B) Looking like the bad guys in this surreal little scenario by making said offer.

Essentially, the Packers told him publicly: We don't really want you anymore, but we don't want anyone else to have you, either. (Jeez, most guys only hear that sentiment from their wives!)

What can I say? Except, "Bravo, Mister Favre! True genius!" Now, if only I can find a way to finagle some unsuspecting corporate entity into tendering me the same deal...

But there is still a way for Favre to snatch defeat from the jaws of public-relations victory. He is said to currently be considering Green Bay's offer; if he were to accept it, it would further cement his image as a vicodin-addled boob with no respect for the game.

Of course, he'd still be getting $20,000,000.00 for doing nothing. Bastard.

Panderers To The Left Of Me! Panderers To The Right!

2008-07-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you've heard: Oil and gasoline prices are rather high. And no one really has a way to change that fact. Fortunately, though, our political class does have a method by which they hope to make me feel better about it: Pandering.

On the left, the Democratic congressional majority, in recent months, brought oil company executives before them for an utterly unilluminating inquisition. In an attempt to provide the illusion of doing something, both the House and Senate used those hapless execs, and the "evil corporations" they head, as verbal punching bags for a couple of days in the spring. And the end result? Nothing.

On the right, our Republican friends in congress have recently given us a new slogan: "Find more. Use less." In other words, drill and conserve. For people who supposedly cherish the "magic of the market," the GOP seems to have absolutely no grasp of market economics. Reduce demand? Sure. Makes sense. Unfortunately, though, the decreasing prices that would result from increased supply would, logically, serve as a perverse incentive against that goal.

Even The Decider, moron that he is, has likened our thirst for oil to the jones of an addict. So are Republicans telling us that the best way to wean a junkie off heroin is to supply him with even more heroin, at a cheaper price?

And candidate McCain's take on the high price of fuel? In a new campaign ad, he tells us that it's all Barack Obama's fault. (Wow! Obama has that kind of power? We'd better elect him President; if he gets pissed at us, there's no telling what kind of havoc he might wreak!)

I'm tired of being pandered to, from left, right and center. So why don't you all just shut up, go about the real business of governing, and stop the empty theatrics? And stop treating me like an idiot!

"Lighten Up, Francis."

2008-07-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

Recently had a little paintball excursion with some of the boys from work -- my first such foray into that activity. It was, I must say, a great deal of fun. And, appropriately, that was the focus of it: fun.

I did have the misfortune of witnessing a few members of other parties on that lovely June morning, persons who took themselves far too seriously. Like they were freakin' G.I. Joe or somethin', for the love of Pete! Like they thought they were the Patton of the North Woods.

Tell you what, Billy Bo Bob Badass: If you really take it all that seriously and have such delusions of grandeur, there is a great place that you might want to check into; it's called the United States Army. I'm sure that they'd be glad to have you.

Otherwise, in the immortal words of Sargeant Hulka in Stripes: "Lighten up, Francis."

A Glimpse Into Republican Economic "Thought"

2008-07-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

In the news: Top McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm has bestowed his "wisdom" upon us concerning the U.S. economy. The former Republican Senator and financial services lobbyist believes that our economic problems are all in our collective head, that we are a nation of whiners, that it's just a "mental recession."

Really, Mister Gramm? That makes me feel so much better!

The rising cost of food at the local grocery store? The falling sales of the company for which I work, and the corresponding cutbacks? The inflation of energy costs, both at the gas pump and the electric meter? Thank God, they're all hallucinations!

Or maybe there is a better, more rational explanation. Maybe Phil Gramm, like so many Republicans, lives in a flimsily-built, inside-the-beltway fantasy world, insulated from the hard realities of life by some combination of material wealth and irrationalism.

In a perfect world, some unemployed Rust Belt everyman would meet Gramm in a dark alley and beat the living piss out of him, with the same lack of mercy that he and his ilk have shown those of us who work for a living. Then we could assure him that the pains from his many contusions and broken bones, the blood issuing from his orifices, were merely figments of his imagination.

But I digress.

Ultimately, this kerfuffle merely serves to illustrate why we cannot afford a President John McCain. McCain himself has admitted that he knows little about economics (as an aside, one has to wonder why Johnny Boy, during 25-plus years in Congress, never bothered to learn much about the subject), and it shows: He has, in his campaign, simply fallen back on the standard Republican economic orthodoxy, leaning on the likes of Gramm for poor economic advice.

We are on the verge of a second Gilded Age. And this time, in this time of unreason, in this New Corporate Age, we cannot count upon a second Progressive Movement to save us from it.

What Is A Sport?

2008-07-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

Random thought of the day...

How does one define what is a sport, and what is not? This is the question that momentarily passed through my addled mind today. (As has been famously said about pornography, I'm not sure that I can define it, but I know it when I see it.)

To me, I guess, a sport involves the following:
A) A ball, puck, or other such object.
B) A goal over or through which either the ball/puck or a player must pass.
C) Esoteric rules that limit one's ability to reach that goal.
D) Other players trying to stop you from reaching that goal.
E) Scores kept of how many times that goal is reached.

So, using that definition, what activities can be considered sports? Well, there are the obvious ones:

1. Football (including Canadian, Arena and Australian Rules)
2. Basketball
3. Baseball (and its bastard children, Softball and Kickball)
4. Hockey
5. Lacrosse
6. Polo (and, by extension, Water Polo)
7. Cricket (Baseball's crazy cousin)
8. Rugby (Football's retarded cousin)

Then there are a couple of them that just barely make it:

9. Tennis (real and Table)
10. Soccer (because it's so damned boring)

And that's all I can think of. Anything else in the sporting world just seems more like an activity that involves, to a greater or lesser degree, some athletic ability. Golf? No defenders. Boxing? Wrestling? Not unless acting is also a sport. Nascar? No ball or puck, just rednecks turning left.

Any other suggestions out there?

2008-07-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

Ooh, me so patriotic! Me liberate you long time!

The Age Of Corporate Pseudo-Rebellion Is Upon Us!

2008-07-07T18:00:00.001-07:00

So, here I am, watching my beloved Twins in a tight game with the Red Sox (by the way, Delmon Young, if you're reading this, they are deliberately trying to get you to chase that first pitch that's out of the strike zone!), and on the ESPN hype machine comes an advertisement for the X Games. This commercial features a supposedly-evil, yet supposedly-status-quo, antagonist, decrying some X-Gaming douchebag named Brian Deegan. Apparently, Deegan is a motocross rebel who must be stopped if society is to survive!

Okay, so let's momentarily forget the fact that Brian Deegan is appearing in a commercial on a massive corporate entity like ESPN. Let's just examine the fact that Deegan makes his living by riding a little motorcycle and doing stunts. What does this tell us? It tells us that Mommy and Daddy Deegan made lots and lots of money, affording little Brian the opportunity (and health insurance) to, essentially, masturbate his life away. And that little Brian was more than happy to suckle at that teat until he found suckers stoned or stupid enough to watch him do his little tricks.

Sadly, this is what passes for "rebellion" in the New Corporate Age: "I'll be a secondary corporate whore until I have the chance to be a primary corporate whore."

'Nuff said.

Go Twins!

Quick Pix On A Sunday Morning

2008-07-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

Babies are awesome!

Here are a couple of photos from last week's family get-together: My lovely granddaughter Bailey ignoring the "Do Not Feed The Animals" sign, and my great niece Maura raising her arm in triumph. Have a great Sunday!

Top 35 Albums Of The Last 25 Years - The REAL List

2008-07-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Entertainment Weekly has released their "new classics" of the last twenty-five years. And, as usual, they hosed it up royally. For supposed arbiters of taste, they have so little taste! I mean, Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Shania Twain were in the top 25 albums, for the love of God!

So, without further ado, here are the actual top 35 albums of the last 25 years, from 35 to 1:

35 - The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem, 2000
34 - Surfacing, Sarah McLachlan, 1997
33 - When It Falls, Zero 7, 2004
32 - Janet, Janet Jackson, 1994
31 - …Nothing Like The Sun, Sting, 1987
30 - Regulate… G Funk Era, Warren G, 1994
29 - The End Of The Innocence, Don Henley, 1989
28 - Come On, Come On, Mary Chapin Carpenter, 1992
27 - Diesel And Dust, Midnight Oil, 1987
26 - Oh Mercy, Bob Dylan, 1989
25 - Spike, Elvis Costello, 1989
24 - Crowded House, Crowded House, 1986
23 - Tunnel Of Love, Bruce Springsteen, 1987
22 - Mama Said Knock You Out, LL Cool J, 1990
21 - Green, R.E.M., 1988
20 - The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, Lauryn Hill, 1998
19 - Stunt, Barenaked Ladies, 1998
18 - Faith, George Michael, 1987
17 - (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis, 1995
16 - The Joshua Tree, U2, 1987
15 - Time’s Up, Living Colour, 1990
14 - 3 Feet High And Rising, De La Soul, 1989
13 - Together Alone, Crowded House, 1993
12 - So, Peter Gabriel, 1986
11 - August And Everything After, Counting Crows, 1993
10 - Purple Rain, Prince and the Revolution, 1984
9 - Graceland, Paul Simon, 1986
8 - OK Computer, Radiohead, 1997
7 - Automatic For The People, R.E.M., 1992
6 - Ten, Pearl Jam, 1991
5 - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Public Enemy, 1998
4 - Sign O’ The Times, Prince, 1987
3 - Try Whistling This, Neil Finn, 1998
2 - Exile In Guyville, Liz Phair, 1993

...and the number one album of the last 25 years:

1 - Nevermind, Nirvana, 1991

Longing For A Cuba That Wasn't

2008-07-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

Now that the presidential general election has arrived (in a de facto sense, at least), American eyes again turn toward that mightiest of swing states, Florida. And the saber-rattling toward Castro's Cuba is sure to ratchet upward.

For many South Floridians of Cuban descent, this is a sacred political cow. And understandably so; those who were pushed from their privileged status by Fidel Castro's revolution, as well as their progeny, can reasonably be expected to harbor animosity toward the current Cuban regime.

But why must this parochial concern be a fulcrum of U.S. presidential politics? Because of the vagaries of our electoral process, of course, in which small constituencies in key states often take on far greater significance than they otherwise would (or should) be accorded. And because conservatives in this country have seized upon this narrow issue (along with the four Gs*) as part of their divide-and-conquer strategy.

(*The four Gs, if you're wondering, are: God, Gays, Guns and Gynecology.)

So we get conservative pundits and politicians talking about the good old days in Cuba, and about how those days must be returned. About the necessity of maintaining our Cuban embargo as long as a Castro is in charge. (And this despite our current engagement with such characters as Pervez Musharraf, Hosni Mubarak, Hu Jintao, King Abdullah, and the list goes on...)

All of this in the name of a lie.

See, if you're not familiar with Cuban life under Fulgencio Batista, Castro's predecessor, then do a little research; it was not a pretty thing. In Batista's Cuba, poverty and illiteracy were rampant, especially among the nonwhite population. Health care was of third-world quality. The disparity of wealth distribution was obscene. Violent political repression was commonplace. The island was a haven for Mafia kingpins and drug runners. And it was all done with the active support of the U.S. government and American corporations. (Gosh, why would Castro have any hostility toward us?)

And so, the next time some Republican scumbag tries to lecture you about the impossibility of engagement with Castro's Cuba, just remember: They are selling you a vision of a Cuba that never was.

"All Men Are Created Equal," Wrote A Slave Owner

2008-07-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting discussion Wednesday on NPR's Talk Of The Nation, looking at the African-American experience and its effects upon black views of patriotism. This conversation was spurred by Michelle Obama's comments earlier this year concerning her feelings about her country, and the negative (and often over-the-top and oblivious) reaction to those comments.

In the end, of course, this is about the great elephant in the American living room: Our inability, even now, to reasonably reconcile the nation's racial history with what we'd like to believe about ourselves. An awfully large number of the white folk that I know want nothing more than to believe that it's all in the past, that the page has turned and we have entered into a "post-racial" era. That that was then, this is now, and nothing more need be said.

But pretending that there is no problem is not the same thing as finding some solution to the problem -- and there clearly is still a problem, judging by black poverty and incarceration statistics, among many other things.

And so Wednesday I found myself driving across Northeastern Iowa, listening to this thoughtful discussion, thinking very soberly about race in America, and occasionally wiping tears from the corners of my eyes. And, most of all, wondering what I can do. In the end, after all, I'm just an ordinary guy, without power or position.

Compounding my feeling of helplessness is my own family history. My father's family, according to my wife's genealogical efforts, appears to have lived in the antebellum South (though it's unclear whether it was in any way connected to slave ownership or trade), and I am told that my paternal grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. How does one even begin to make up for such a background?

I decided, trite though it may seem, that one can merely do what one can do. I cannot change the past. But I can change my own reality here in the present, in the hope that it will positively impact the future. I can work to improve myself, to recognize and eradicate the small prejudices that I might still harbor. I can continue trying to raise my children to see persons for who they are, not what they are. I can have the courage speak up when I see injustice, and to confront those who are unenlightened or cynical enough to use race divisively. I can support policies and politicians that work toward a more just society.

And, perhaps most importantly (and most difficult in these times), I can keep my faith. I can believe that we, as a nation, will continue to move forward, toward the society that we want to be. That I want us to be. That we can be, if we dare.