"I think they are all homosexual communists in Satan's army...I espect as well they all live together and bathe together every morning and have the anal sex with one another, with the fisting and the guinea pigs." - Manuel Estimulo
"I can never quite tell if the defeatists are conservative satirists poking fun at the left or simply retards. Or both. Retarded satire, perhaps?" - Kyle
"You're an effete fucktard" - Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom
"This is the most pathetic blog ever..." - Ames Tiedeman
"You two [the Rev and el Comandante] make an erudite pair. I guess it beats thinking." - Matt Cunningham (aka Jubal) of OC Blog
"Can someone please explain to me what the point is behind that roving gang of douchebags? I’m being serious here. It’s not funny, and doesn’t really make anything that qualifies as logical argument. Paint huffers? Drunken high school chess geeks?" - rickinstl
Speaker Boehner has had the privilege, which he screwed up both times, of swearing in the members of the House of Representatives. In that oath, they swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies and then engage in a ceremonial reading of the Constitution which they have screwed up both times. What I'm missing is how a party that crows so much about patriotism and country can then turn around and do everything they can to undermine the Constitution and the government that is the instrument of upholding and enforcing it?
The 14th Amendment primarily is the guarantee of due process to all citizens and has language that may confer the same guarantees on all persons under the jurisdiction of the United States or the various states. But, Section 4 is even more clear --
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
By voting for it, I believe they have engaged in a conspiracy to undermine the United States government and violate the Constitution.
The fact that so many of the Republicans in the House voted for this abomination should scare anyone with a bit of sense. If you begin to stake out the debate by establishing the pattern of taking your marbles and going home, it gets to be difficult for the other side to take you seriously. And, if you response to a systemic problem is to dance around like capering apes, well, it gets even more difficult to stand to be around you. Frankly, neither Boehner nor McConnell have shown any tendency to keep their words, promises or principles. They don't want to lose their jobs -- which is interesting, since I would think that passing out campaign money and other bribes...err, gratuities...no, bribes in the name of whomever is paying them would be right in their G-spot. Together, they could be the Dancing Queens of the K-Street Crowd.
Ok, the bill violates the Constitution It also has no chance of passing the Senate, and if it somehow passed the Senate, it would be vetoed by the President. It's pure stubborn ignorance and obliviousness. The President is hampered here by the fact that he's a constitutional law professor and has read the document a few times. The President can recommend policy and the President gets to enforce the law, but the tax code and taxes begins in the House. The Debt Limit isn't like the filibuster where you can imagine a bill or a nomination so mindbogglingly awful to demand a response like it. It's a done deal, and all the spending cuts in the world -- most ill-advised, of course, can't fix that. We spent the money...now it's debt and "shall not be questioned."
A great deal of the discussion of this ploy, as with so many of the things coming from this version of the House, is easily summed up with the question "What the HELL are these fools thinking?" What they're thinking is that the last debt ceiling thing worked out so well for them, that they should just go for round 2 only with a bill that is unpassable and unconstitutional because, well, Michelle Bachman brought a Minnesota Hotpot and Mitch McConnell is sending over a couple of cases of the best Kentucky White Lightning.
Of course, what makes this particularly funny is that China is not even close to being our largest debt holder. If you do as they suggest, paying China first and then do the rest of it however they get around it it, the Republicans are screwing with the American people in order to benefit Asian-Commie-Atheists. I'm as fond of Asian-Chinese Commie Atheists as anybody, but this is probably not the way to show it.
The Republican strategy in this case actually will have the impact of hurting the economy and American business. If the bill were to become law -- which it won't -- the current accounts would be the thing that doesn't get paid. Defense Contractors are like everybody else -- they bill monthly and get paid eventually. So, Boeing, NGC, Lockheed and all the rest might have to lay off everybody.The ripple effect will be profound...More to come.
"It's criminal and scandalous that we are ignoring the effect of sequestration on our national security," he said. "Yeah, I'm glad to see all of the focus on whether we have to wait in line longer, or there's flight delays, but I wish to God Congress would sometimes focus on the threats to our national security."
John McCain
I've been amused by the complaints about nd Air Traffic Control and how awful it is that the President is selectively attacking the airline industry and the heartland by shuttering the various air traffic control towers around the country. Jackson Brown has a line in The Pretender "I'll be a happy idiot, and struggle for the legal tender..." Well, the Republicans in the House have done this to the nation and there are things more important than missed airline connections to Cousin's Fud's wedding happening. And yet, because that inconvenience touches people who will pick up the phone and call their Congressional Office, the idiots feel that someone has to be responsible. Some one is -- the person or persons who decided that the Sequestration process was a good thing and that they needed to actually implement it because they could. Now, there were Democrats who agreed to this so it could pass, but it was a lousy idea if implemented, but they assumed it was never going to be implemented.. IT WAS INTENTIONALLY A LOUSY IDEA!No fool would let this happen...no fool would let the government default on its debt. No fool would advocate tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the middle class. No fool would cut taxes based on a projected surplus ten years down the road. No fool ....but, a whole confederation of fools are capable of doing what no fool could do.
""What I'm trying to do is to wake up members of the Congress on the Republican side to the idea that they need to come to the table, offer a proposal so that we don't have to have this kind of calamity in air service in America." LaHood said members of Congress would quickly feel the heat. "Your phones are gonna start ringing off the hook," LaHood predicted. LaHood said a majority of the FAA's 47,000 employees, including air traffic controllers, would face furloughs of one day a week and, in some cases, two days a week, to close a $1 billion hole sequester would create in the Department of Transportation's budget."
He said this in February 2013. In English. Other people said the same sort of stuff. In English. To Congress. The whole concept of sequestration was to present such unpalatable options to Congress that they would find a way to work together to come up with something the nation could live with. Well, fooled us -- not only are the Republicans unable to do arithmetic competently, they don't understand English. Of course, they're busy hiring interns to do the whole sexual exploitation thing, and introducing bills accusing Michelle Obama of planning the Boston bombing and other things of great national importance.
You know, like it or not, we have a government that does a lot of stuff -- could do less, could do more -- but there are things that it has to do. And, laws actually have consequences beyond whether or not the incumbent gets re-elected. Consequences that are far more important. The best argument for campaign finance reform including public financing and spending limits is there...if they're not busy working the phones and do fundraisers, maybe they'll actually ask the simplest of questions -- "What exactly is this going to mean to my constituents?" since the only thing motivating these clowns is whether or not they're going to be primaried or re-elected. John McCain is fairly irate about the Sequestration. He should be, of course...he sees it as unfairly cutting defense; while I am not one to oppose Defense spending, it's taken a lot fewer shots than lots of other programs over the decades. Still, McCain despite his blinders, is on to something when he talks about sequestration. McCain has been talking about this for months, but he's only talked about the effect on Defense. McCain is perturbed that it took the Air Traffic Controller furlough to go into effect for Congress to wake up. Well, one thing these guys have done is make Phil Ochs a real prophet in upsidedownland...Ochs said when introducing his "Love Me, Love Me, Love Me I'm a Liberal!" that "You know what a liberal is? 10% to the left of center in good times...10% to the right of center when it affects him personally. And, now for a lesson in safe logic..." Well, now the Republicans have managed to turn themselves into mirror liberals, pushing for the little guy waiting to take off from Slippery Hollow International for an extra 20 minutes because the GOOBERMENT closed the control towers.
Well, if I thought they'd found Jesus, I'd be ok with this. Everyone is happy to see a sinner repent. But, let's not get excited here and mistake expedience for penance I expect to hear some condescending words directed at McCain by the Republicans in the Senate who are fine with this disaster and think they can blame the President; something might get done on Air Traffic Controllers and some defense cuts; but it's all going to be piecemeal and stupid. The kid depending on the free breakfast subsidized by the DOA or the disabled Vet forced to wait longer by some exponential factor for a rating or the researcher this close, this bloody close to a cure for uterine cancer will just have to wait. The long term unemployed, the kid needing the student loan, the parents whose child was just sent home from Head Start because he lost in a lottery for a seat, the Fertilizer Factory waiting for the fire inspectors and OSHA will all have to wait..."10% to the right of center when,.,,"
One of my buddies lives in the hills of rural New England. He's involved in structural steel design and fabrication and does work on the side as well as an independent. This is of course very common in this economy; he was laid off last year, and the family survived fine on his wife's salary as a teacher – not the most secure of jobs today which is a horrible indictment of the system – and what he made. Because of the oddball income streams, he has somebody local do his tax work. Well, he went to get his taxes done and the guy – an older guy, by which he means a guy a few years older than me – started complaining about how the blacks have taken over and it's all Obama's fault. My buddy changed the subject and mentioned that he was interested in craft beer and maybe small time distilling. Well, the guy stopped ranting and raving and got up and shut the door to his office. He then confided that in addition to doing taxes and bookkeeping, he was a moonshiner. Had been doing it for years out in the woods and now it was hard to keep up with demand because he was older and had shoulder problems so lugging the supplies up in the hills was a bit of a problem. If my pal would help him, he'd teach him everything he knows about distilling alcohol. My buddy is more interested in craft vodka than white lightning, although having tried both back in my drinking days, I can't recall any real difference. My pal thinks he can keep the conversation turned to the Red Sox and such, avoiding politics and incendiary nonsense that might make his head explode long enough to learn some things; at the same time, he's investigating what he needs to do to set up a craft distillery legally. I guess vodka aged in maple syrup barrels might have a unique flavor and texture. I suspect the first thing he needs to do is avoid killing the guy for general pinheaded racism and jerkiness; next, not get caught by the " G-men, T-Men and Revenooers too"; then see what he has to do to use his skills and craft legally.
Another friend lusts to start his own craft brewery. They all started small, so what the hell? He has a somewhat more stable job and engineering degrees. He hates engineering and working for engineers, with engineers, about engineering stuff. Actually, I think he likes the actual engineering profession and problem solving but has problems with the BS. He's from basically the same neighborhood although he now lives in Philly; guy is so serious that he's seriously looking to get fired or laid off and just quit so he can intern with one of the dozens of craft breweries in the area. He mentioned this morning in our daily email dump and soiree that he'd had a dream where he was standing looking out at a harbor when an incoming airliner crashed into the water, flipped and burned. He then was surrounded by crowds of people screaming that they had seen the whole thing and that THEY WERE THE VICTIMS! They needed help because they were Americans and they had seen this thing. He woke up shuddering a bit. For the record, the guy is a left-libertarian with some socialist leanings, despises the Tea Party-Fox News types but also hates listening to whiney assholes.
Both of these guys are very normal so they really are pretty abnormal. The first's story doesn't surprise me; the rural parts of the country have long been home to generations of a more literate class of hillbillies than people think. Quite frankly, you can bump into some really smart and well educated folk when you get off the interstate in places like Kentucky and East Texas, let alone New England. I remember one "old boy" in a reserve unit I served with as an adviser. Guy had graduated from Texas A&M and had been an Army helicopter pilot in the later stages of Vietnam; he then became a logistics manager for the Army Reserve. Typical of reserve officers in east Texas; however, he had majored in French and English while an Aggie. Lots of guys from that generation who went through the Corps of Cadets majored in things like Mechanical Agriculture and Poultry Science. He didn't let it show too often, but occasionally old Major JimBob (which was his first name) would wander over to my desk where he would say things like "I just spent five hours in a car driving back from Louisiana with LTC Jacque Offe (not real name) after inspecting that Coon-ass Battalion. Top, it's true what that ole French Boy said one time….Sartre, wasn't it. "L'enfer est d'autres personnes… Hell is other people. Sapsucker nailed that shit…" And then he walked out. Another time, "I just spent an hour listening to two colonels and a politician talking about how good everything is going to be when Bush gets the presidency. Those guys are Aggies sitting in Plato's cave, but they just put out the fire…" poured himself some coffee, took some dip and walked out.
While I don't think anybody anywhere needs to worry an incipient rebellion by "angry Negroes", rural New England is really an unlikely venue. That idea enrages my friend, but he can deal with it. The other guy, well, his dream indicates that he's got the soul of a poet trapped in the body of an endurance athlete – very good amateur bike racer – along with the mind of an engineer. Since these three classes of people are prone to eccentricity, hallucination, delusion, paranoia and general madness, he has the perfect psyche for somebody who lives in Philadelphia. We do worry that at some point, his daughter will put a leash on him and take him to a kindergarten show as an example of cognitive dissonance and abnormal psychology. (Kid's not quite two, but she's got skills.)
But, here's the thing – I think both of these guys have great ideas. They'd be happier, their wives are supportive, and what the hell. Although the guy currently wandering around between Kennebunkport and Lake Champlain is a Yankee and the other guy is very, very Polish, bootlegging and illegal stills are a fine Scots-Irish-American tradition. We need to remember that the first revenue sought by the nascent United States was going to be a tax on whiskey, resulting in an actual as opposed to make-believe (Tea Party) rebellion that fizzled out when Washington and Hamilton took the well-regulated militia to the field. Corn whiskey was money on the frontier. Although Appalachia is its home, it deserves more attention as a sign of something in the American character. There's a verse in Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Choctaw Bingo" about mean old Uncle Slayton…
Uncle Slayton's got his Texan pride Back in the thickets with his Asian bride He's got a Airstream trailer and a Holstein cow He still makes whiskey 'cause he still knows how He plays that Choctaw bingo every Friday night You know he had to leave Texas but he won't say why He owns a quarter section up by Lake Eufala Caught a great big ol' blue cat on a driftin' jug line Sells his hardwood timber to the shipping mill Cooks that crystal meth because the shine don't sell He cooks that crystal meth because the shine don't sell You know he likes his money he don't mind the smell
..."
Sadly the shine doesn't sell so well anymore. There are cheaper, faster and easier ways to parlay an isolated location and some rudimentary materials into a profit making enterprise. Meth is the one that should concern us; instead, we spend billions worrying about marijuana. Which isn't much different in effect than moonshine, beer, vodka or Romilar CF. Now, crystal meth is a tad bit different than moonshine or craft beer or craft vodka. I've advocated legalization of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and just about any other drug but meth is evil. Meth cookers should have a bounty put on them, like coyotes in some western states when they start taking too many cattle. I've seen lives snuffed out by meth that were tragic in so many ways; same with alcohol and traditional drugs, but it takes so much longer. Meth kills quickly. A bit of moonshining won't do that unless the still explodes…
Things get weird in this country. At times, it seems like we don't have enough stupid problems of our own, we need to import more. Hookah bars…what the hell is that all about? Kid in the gym yesterday told me about her part-time job after her part-time job at the gym working in a Hookah Lounge in the next city. I told her I didn't get it, and asked what the hell is attractive about it. She said it's a "chill" atmosphere...you sit around, drink coffee, listen to music and smoke. Through hookahs...which have the tar and nicotine dose of several packs of cigarettes per hour. She said 200, but if that were the case, the leading cause of death in Hookah-countries would be lung cancer instead of camel transmitted venereal disease, intestinal parasites, and gunfire. Stylist this morning tried to explain it, although she thinks it's stupid too -- the smoke is less harsh and they flavor it so you get the tobacco effects with...STOP! I smoked for 20 years. What effects? Seriously, what effects besides bad breathe, stained teeth, bleeding gums, cancer, and on and on and on. We can't figure out enough ways to kill ourselves in this country, we import more. And, I know all about the Native American/organic stuff -- I've even had to take a pull or two on a ceremonial pipe filled with naturally grown tobacco. Those pipes are hard to draw from and the ceremonial stuff isn't really that dry so it's like smoking mud. If they're burning it for "medicine" it's mixed with sage (sweet grass) or cedar chips depending on what part of the country you're talking about. WHAT EFFECTS? The only positive effects come after you are addicted...then it calms you down from the urge to rip your skin off, tear off that annoying bastard's head and shit down the hole and then check his corpse to see if HE"S GOT ANY GODDAMNED Tobacco...
Wayne LaPierre and the NRA are seriously deranged; it's one thing to roll out the same old talking points, but they have responded to the perceived threats to gun ownership (there is none) with a combination of hysteria, hyperbole and plain mean-spirited bullshit. Frankly, the idea of having trained armed guards patrolling schools doesn't bother me that much – they're called police. We don't have enough because the NRA's Republican allies have been devastating state and local government by cutting grants and not approving money for more cops. What the hell is wrong with these people? We originally closed the state and local mental health institutions because they were underfunded, understaffed, unprofessional hell holes. The response that we need to have a bunch of fully armed Paul Blart's running around school campuses because of mental health issues is seriously warped.
Now, it is true that if the government knows who has guns and where the guns are, they could conceivably confiscate them as part of the war on Christmas or something. They know who's got the cars and pickup trucks, right? The speedboats, the private planes…when someone like Antonin "Cicero" Scalia starts talking about how some regulation is obviously constitutional, the game is over and it's just a matter of time. So, saying the President's children are protected and therefore the President doesn't care about children if he takes away the right of every 18 year old junior high school dropout to have an AK47 with multiple banana clips taped together to channel his testosterone warped dreams is a combination of non-sequitur, madness and viciousness. Now, from what I've seen the two Obama daughters are pretty cool young women. Not as much fun as Huntsman's daughters would have been – I recall them drinking wine in some of their videos, which makes me wonder about the whole Mormon thing's pervasiveness at 1313 Mocking Bird Lane or wherever the Huntsman family hangs out – but they're obviously brighter than the Bush girls and Dad isn't a mean drunk. Or paint himself in the nude and send the paintings to his mother. They're nice kids. The reason that they have guards is the same reason that Michelle has guards; the same reason that Speaker Boehner has guards; the same reason that GW Bush has guards – they are high value targets for terrorists, nutcases and criminals. Individual high value targets…under threat.
The NRA is a sad organization, out of step with its members and really in thrall to the gun manufacturers and distributors. Sad, because there are a lot of things it could and should be doing and advocating. I'd like to see mandatory training, licensing, and refresher courses for example. Push that hard, and there will be an increase in ranges, shooting clubs and similar organizations. If you want to protect gun ownership, get the gun owners involved in shooting sports. And, plunking locals driving down the street doesn't count nor students on a campus.
The Debt Limit
Although he can't resist the digs at Social Security and Medicare that are intertwined with current Republican DNA, David Brooks has a generally excellent column in the February 12 edition of the Times. While I get a bit a bit irritable when some rich bastard – and Brooks is a wealthy man from a wealthy family – starts knocking entitlement programs, the thrust of the column is that the United States has always been about the future, not the present. We mortgaged the present, from the beginning, for the future. People forget when they babble about American exceptionalism that the whole "City on a Hill" thing by Winthrop was written when the hills were covered with beaver, muskrats, swamps and cranberry bogs….ok, Southey and Charleston were bogs, the hills were probably just trees…and muskrats…and Pequot Indians. The payback time for things like the Transcontinental Railroad, the Erie Canal, the Land Grant College, the TVA, the Hoover Dam and on and on and on should be measured in centuries. By forgetting that, we have shifted from mortgaging the future to pay for the present. Brooks knocks Medicare and Social Security – I suggest that the move from pensions to 401K plans did great things for current salaries for CEOs. The folks who pay into Social Security and Medicare think they are paying now for a future benefit.
Brooks also points out that business has a major role here. It's not just the government that needs to fund education, innovation, research and infrastructure. The entire Ayn Randian/ Milton Friedman (talk about a love that dares not speak its name) riff on greed and "shareholder value" has encouraged business to focus the efforts of executives on short term results. Banks used to lend primarily for investment in innovation and productivity; now, they are focused on lending for consumption and real estate.
I am personally not concerned this afternoon as to whether or not the President has the guts to cut spending. I'm concerned that he might not have the courage to spend more and use the bully pulpit of the presidency to force the House to approve more of it in the right places. The government acts primarily as a bank with an army, as Paul Krugman and other Times Op-Ed writers have described it. Most of what it does is transfer funds; the government borrows money to accomplish the things the government wants to do because the Congress has legislated it –spent the money – and the executive branch is trying to comply with Congress' guidance. I'm not certain how the geniuses on the right came up with the strategy of reneging on debts as a way of decreasing spending – ever miss a payment on a credit card? Is there a difference? Or have your credit rating drop a bit? If you miss payments or have a downgrade in your credit rating, you will not be able to borrow money at the sweetheart rates you were using before. Most of the various house of cards that collapsed in the early Bush years – ENRON, anyone – did so because the ratings agencies downgraded their debt and they couldn't borrow to pay current costs. There is probably a large firm someplace that doesn't borrow; but for the most part, it's small businesses with little inventory, no production and simple products. In other words, lemonade stands.
So, by screwing around with the debt limit, the Republican Party is saying "We were drunk! Now, we're crazy. We're still drunk, but we're crazy now…" Downgrading the good faith and credit of the United States is exactly what they shouldn't be doing. The debt limit is reached by doing things like paying Social Security, Veterans Benefits, fighting wars, having the FAA control the airports and so on. Be freaking serious – we have never had a real government shutdown. If the Federal Government did a real shutdown, and just closed it's doors on EVERYTHING! For a day or two, some people living the peaceful life of the Unabomber in cabins in the Montana Wilderness would be fine with it. Everyone else, not so much. The way the Federal Government gets the money to avoid shutting down is to borrow it and raise income to pay it. Makes sense to borrow money at low interest rates; makes no sense if you are a net borrower to jack up interest rates. Unless you're drunk and crazy…or, aligned with the enemies of the United States. Now, obviously they can't just raise money by borrowing – it has to be paid back. The way to pay it back is through taxes; since everyone hates taxes but most people love the services government provides, well, the best way is to spread the pain. Flat tax rates don't spread the pain equitably, because this is not North Korea. Some of us have a lot more, some of us have a lot less. In theory, if you take 20% from me and 20% from the guy begging for change on the on-ramp of the interstate and 20% from Donald Trump, that might be fair. Insane of course, because 20% of my income isn't that much and 20% of the income from the guy on the onramp isn't that much; 20% of Trump's income, on the other hand might be reasonable. That's tax policy and it's complex. What we do know is that when government uses progressive tax rates tied to the GDP and perceived requirements, it raises more money. What we also learned from George W. Bush is that there is no room with a big pile of money in it.
This is where the "living within our means" meme comparing government to families is absurd. As Krugman, Stieglitz and Keynes all pointed out (along with Friedman, Heller and Galbraith), there is a major difference of scale between government spending and borrowing and lending and what a family does. A family has an income to manage; the government has an economy. If I am the Vicuna industry, I depend on government subsidies to help my Vicunas go to college or wherever Vicunas go. If the government isn't able to fund Vicuna education and research anymore, well, my Vicunas will be screwed. We need to spend money in order to get the economy moving; get the engine turning over and it will generate more than enough to repeat the Clinton-Gingrich miracle of deficit reduction and surpluses, unless screwed up by the Republican House or the American disease of national attention deficit disorder.
The Papal Resignation
What did the Knights of Malta tell the Pope that caused His Holiness to take the "unprecedented" step of stepping down?
Was it a simple "you're fired"?
The Knights of Malta are one of the most feared and whispered-about secret societies in the world. Originally a gang of fanatical crusaders dedicated to perpetrating genocide in the Holy Land, the Knights apparently have not changed very much – at least if you believe Seymour Hersh. He says the Knights of Malta are a key part of "how eight or nine neoconservatives, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government." (Hersh is too polite to mention that they did it by way of the 9/11 inside job.)
Seymour Hersh explains:
"[The] attitude (toward the Iraq invasion) was, 'What's this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they're all worried about some looting?" Hersh was quoted as saying. "Don't they get it? We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.' That's the attitude. We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command [JSOC]."
Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today, 2/12/2003
When I saw the other morning that Pope Benedict, aka "Benny the Rat" had decided to go somewhere else and do something different, I thought it made sense. The last time this happened, of course, a Pope's attempt at resignation resulted in the Babylonian Captivity, the farce of multiple Popes ultimately resolved by resignation and return to Italy by the French Pope while the Italian-Holy Roman Empire's pope headed off for retirement in a monastery. While nothing so dramatic prompted this, the resignation of one Pope because he felt incapable of doing the job followed by self imposed exile, imprisonment, death, and canonization. That debacle resulted in the Babylonian Captivity in Avignon, followed ultimately by another's resignation to end a schism. seems reasonable. Assume a modicum of sincerity on the part of men who spend their lives defending the institution. They're prepared to do whatever needs to be done in the best interests of the Church. Lots of them over the centuries have chosen to do other things than what was best for Catholicism, but they did so thinking that what was best for them was best for Catholicism, Christianity and God. John Paul II was an important symbol of the relevance of Catholicism; it made sense for him to serve until death. Benedict was a caretaker from the beginning, and when the shepherd can't defend the sheep or control them, it makes sense for him to go off to sit by the fire and think. Theologically, philosophically and intellectually.
So, when I glanced at this piece in Veterans Today, I felt my head spin around. As the responses piled up, I got twitchier. We do have some interesting mindsets represented by the readers of Vets, and I'm generally ok with that. We also have a widely diverse crew of writers who have a lot of different things to say. Some of us are insane; some of us are fixated on Israeli policy; some of us are scared of the Jews. The staff tries very hard to ensure that the critique stays focused on policy and verifiable history. Since I respect the right of folks to believe and say bizarre stuff like the earth is flat or that Stalin was a Jew, I tend to be perhaps an outlier. They get to write what they think, I get to I think they're crazy, and at times I'll say so. The author, Dr. Kevin Barrett, is an Islamic scholar, teacher, writer and nonprofit organizer. He is a frequent contributor to Veterans Today, and has his own blog at Truth Jihad. Although he's a persuasive advocate for his beliefs and positions, I generally don't agree with his analysis. I have my issues with this article; frankly, the idea of some combination of the Knights of Malta and the Turkish government unintentionally conspiring to blast God's Rottweiler out of the Papacy strikes me as too clever by half. Reality is not some deranged Da Vinci Code, nor some other variation on it.
First of all, Benedict and John Paul II were a powerful force largely because of their very strong intellects. Agree with them or not, they knew their stuff. I suspect that Benedict may have been showing some signs of some debilitating disease -- Alzheimer's? Dementia? Cardio-issues? -- or something spooked him. Remember, he served John Paul II until the end and to a certain extent acted in the way that Haig acted for Nixon, keeping his legacy safe while moderating behavior while watching his friend, mentor and leader drift off into something entirely less.
Next, what could make the Pope tired? Well, the revelation that the cover-up of priestly abuse in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles could have been the final straw; certainly, the sexual abuse issues and the serious challenges to the Magisterium within the Church might have led the old man to say the hell with this. Ireland, the US, the Nuns, the theologians...Challenges for a younger man. When the shepherd gets really tired of the flock, time to find a new shepherd while he goes off to doze by the fire, pet the Dauschund, sip some Maltiser and reflect.
While most public Papal audiences are pretty tame, if not lame, private ones can be different. The Knights of Malta are a military order to some extent, not unlike the Jesuits. Except, of course, the Knights are very wealthy; always have been, by the way, even after being kicked out of Malta by Napoleon. They were exceptional fighters in the Crusades, although they maintained the hospitals and caring far more than the Templars. Which is probably one reason why they were never thought of as easy pickings for greedy monarchs. Until they became more secularized, they were an extraordinarily potent Naval and Military force. It would be a mistake to think of them as something like the Knights of Columbus. At the same time, they aren't the KGB or the Mossad. What they are is incredibly rich, with lots of very wealthy members and patrons. The Church has been facing money issues for decades; an audience with the leadership of the Knights that had any working aspects would have tired anyone who isn't well-versed in international finance. The Knights of Malta also have a lot of diplomatic ties and influence in Africa and Latin America – places where the Church seeks more influence and power.
Cardinal Ratzinger wasn't all that excited about being selected as Pope, and he saw himself from the beginning as a caretaker. What happens next will be interesting; my own thought is that we're going to see some radical change -- either strongly reactionary or strongly revolutionary.
The Gospel of Barabbas is an interesting red herring. If you seriously think that the publication of a non-canonical gospel is going to undue Christianity, you're overestimating the impact of these things. The idea of Catholics moving toward something like Sharia especially in Europe or the US/Canada flies in the face of the move toward greater liberation on the parts of Catholics. This is especially true because, frankly, the Bible is not primary driver behind Catholicism theologically. It's one of three, of course -- the Bible, the traditions of the Church, and the Magisterium. A non-canonical text will be added to the historical and systematic theological studies as have the rest of them. Rather, I see that as a distraction, frankly.
An openly gay pope undoing In Humanae Vitae, Papal Infallibility, Celibacy and the prohibition on Homosexuality would be interesting indeed. An intellectual of the sort of power of John Paul and Benedict but with greater flexibility and openness would be fascinating. My guess -- either a total outsider or another caretaker. Of course, given the continuing power of conservatives in the College of Cardinals, who knows? We could see the re-institution of burning at the stakes for heretics.
One of my friends, Dr. Mary Hunt, has been cited by me before. Mary is a radical feminist Catholic theologian and has had a fascinating career. She is no fan of the institutional Catholic Church, and has devoted most of her life to an organization she and her partner founded in Bethesda, the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual. While I'm sure she'll be vaguely amused and equally troubled by Barnett's reading on this, I suspect she cluck knowingly that Michael is still hanging around with dubious companions. Like her. We were once dubious companions together. She is now a respected pillar of the religious and spiritual community. Me, I play guitar and write for blogs. Water's post on this story is clear, concise and worth considering. Mary was a Neo-Thomist philosophy student before Harvard Divinity tempted her to theology, and like me, she's still fond, I think, of Occam's razor. Don't multiply bloody entities…sometimes, a cigar and a retiring Pope are a cigar and retiring Pope.
This is WATER's statement.
Let an Inclusive Church Rise!
WATER welcomes the news of the Pope Benedict XVI's resignation and wishes him a peaceful and dignified future.
The Pope's conscience-based decision reflects an honest assessment of his diminished capacity and an enlightened view of the job. We support freedom of conscience in this and in all things, including reproductive and sexual choices.
The Pope demonstrated by his abdication that change is afoot in the Catholic community. Rather than business as usual in the election of his successor, we take this as an opportunity to develop new forms of participatory leadership reflecting the diversity and maturity of the Catholic community. Let an inclusive church rise!
If substantive structural changes in the church begin to emerge, history will record Pope Benedict XVI with more than an asterisk for having retired. Rather, he will be remembered for ending a period of patriarchal rule and making way for a new era of equality. This is our prayer. Read more.
Friend of mine in Concord, California has an incredibly bizarre job – he's a coordinator for Disabled Student services at a district junior college. He's actually a pretty nice guy, like a lot of other cops, soldiers, firefighters, social workers, hospice workers and so on, but the clients drive him crazy. Fat people, blind people, crazy people, mildly retarded people, crippled people, deaf people and on and on and on and on. Lots of people in the college administration have great ideas about how to save money, how to take care of students, how to do just about everything but no one has the money to do any of it, including saving money. A student who had never approached his office for assistance is suing the college for lack of access to some classes; a Dean decides to sell a perfectly good van and replace it with some extended golf carts that do not have the ground clearance for the easy navigation of the myriad speed bumps; cuts in staff have everyone on edge. He is saved from madness by being a cancer survivor, which is a fairly consuming hobby of course and by being interested in a lot of strange stuff. He announced today that some new study shows that the proton is even SMALLER than previously thought, by about 4%. How exciting, as Doc Holliday might say apropos of Kate's non-utilization of the bustle, how lewd. Well, not really.
Instead of celebration, however, the result has caused consternation. Such a big discrepancy, say the physicists, led by Randolf Pohl of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, could mean that the most accurate theory in the history of physics, quantum electrodynamics, which describes how light and matter interact, is in trouble.
"What you have is a result that actually shocked us," said Paul Rabinowitz, a chemist from Princeton University, who was a member of Dr. Pohl's team.
The results were published in Nature. Protons, of course, have not shrunk. They have been whatever size they are ever since they congealed out of a primordial soup of energy and even smaller particles — quarks and gluons — in the early moments of the Big Bang. Determining how big they are, however, is both important to fundamental physics and extremely difficult.
At the risk of being cynical, duh! Most theories are resolved as proven or unproven or wrong when a new fact – the existence of gravity, the non-monadial construction of the universe, the estimation of the area under a curve, the utility of bread mold in treatment of disease, the size of protons – becomes known and screws the theories up. The Author points out that everything is still the same, but the calculations will probably come out significantly different. By, oh, some factor of 4%. But, the universe will still move.
Should have heard him about Higgs Boson. By the way, he was a theatre major. Go figure.
My thought when I read the note and article was that well, that just means there is maybe more nothing that everything is made of. In the general understanding of nuclear physics as a model for the universe, most of the atom is empty space through which electrons zing and zip and zig and zag. They now have four percent more space to do it in. There's even more nothing; and, you take all that nothing, and suddenly you have something. What that something is may be surprising, or not. But sometimes, there is just too much of nothing to make something of… Which, of course, leads to current events, non-events, imaginary happenings and so on.
Fiscal Cliff/Debt Ceiling/ Budgeting Kerfluffle
If there was any great doubt as to the wholly owned subsidiary nature of the Republicans in Congress to the Big Money, well, those results were made abundantly clear through out this. Not good news in terms of liberty, of course, but you'd think that the House could be quickly brought to heel. Nope, not likely. John Boehner has a coalition party up against Pelosi and her coalition party. However, Nancy Pelosi has built a pretty strong framework, a pretty strong bond of loyalty and we're all Democrats while allowing room for conscience. Since the idiocy and hyper-partisanship of the Hastert rule, the Republicans have pretty much emasculated the speaker. For those of you who don't know what the Hastert rule may be, don't be surprised. It's more Capital Hill gobbledegook, Gingrichian-Rovian madness that discourages compromise and working across the aisle. For the Speaker to allow a bill to come to the floor, he must have a Majority of the Majority. In other words, with 233 Republicans, Boehner feels compelled by that non-rule rule to not bring a vote until his whips assure him he has at 162 solid, sure, no shit votes. There are times when he just can't get there; he could pass the legislation, but he'd need to go to Pelosi and Hoyer to get them to agree to give him enough Democrats to pass the bill. He doesn't want to do that because it makes him look weak. So, while there have been things done lately with some necessary Democratic support, Boehner knows that there are a lot of things he can't get done unless Nancy P agrees, and he's afraid of the price for her agreement.
Now, when the Koch Bros tell you to put a schnizzle on that konizzel, so to speak, about deficits and spending cuts and debt limits, you're pretty far out there into tinfoil hat conspiracy country. Yet, despite the fact to which I will stipulate – most congressional Republicans are not teriary stage syphilitic madmen and women babbling this nonsense at home and in their sleep, most of them know it's all insane and they just went along with this, you know, out of poltics and foolin' around and now, Jesus Christ, what have we done! – they have to worry about the majority of their majority. How many of their base voters in their gerrymandered districts are this crazy? Do they have to worry about a primary challenge in their safe little home? Well, yeah – if Mitch Turtle McConnell is worried about a Tea Party challenge, then they need to worry in the house if Representative Katey "I'm conservative not crazy" Kracker might get opposed by someone who confuses World Net Daily with the Daily News and thinks they can channel Adam Smith and Joe McCarthy through their smart phone. A World Nut Daily type, who may win the nomination and then the seat unless they're able to do the whole Christine O'Donnell and the Democrat wins…and the former incumbent has to get a real job. How many lobbyists can K street accommodate?
So, the R's will continue to do stupid shit – retire the deficit without massive new revenue in ten years? Violate the constitution? Hold their breath and turn blue? Recite the Constitution but this time on helium? – that will be meaningless, and if they are in danger of actually hurting the economy as opposed to just not helping it, the big money dogs will pull them to heel. Nothing much to see here – intellectual and moral bankruptcy is more of a void than a spectacle.
Women in Combat – Ever Hear Boudicca? Joan of Arc?
Possibly apocryphal, but the story goes that for years, the Ranger Training Regiment has never outright refused a woman candidate. Come on in and join the fun; so far, no one has wanted to hang around too long. I can understand that – it takes a certain degree of testosterone charged madness to want to go through twelve weeks of deprivation, exhaustion, bullying and macho mind games. For the record, I'm in favor of all of that, by the way.
The issue in the Army and Marines has been locations on the battlefield; the issue for the Navy has been largely types of ships to which women could be assigned. I don't expect to see a woman command Special Operations Command or the Combined Arms School at Fort Benning any time soon. I do, however, expect that any supposedly closed opportunities in logistics, maintenance, intelligence, aviation or missiles will be seriously evaluated and there will be some openings. As for the issue of women receiving recognition for the combat they have seen and supposedly have been denied, well, again I can only speak with some comfort for the Army but I suspect it's largely BS. Granted, the Army is the only service with the combat patch and the combat infantry badge. However, the initiation of the Close Combat Badge a few years ago was intended to address the problem of folks without infantry MOS who deserved some sort of recognition. I know a number of women soldiers who won that thing in Iraq and they tend to make light of it which generally means in Army culture that they're very, very proud of the award and earned it not to get the award but to get the job done. One of them, Captain Nastashia Faye (USAR) joked about being under fire under her desk…in Takrit. (Stash, by the way, is very heavily into Extreme Cross Fit to the point where she doesn't make my teeth hurt, she scares me…she gets mad at me, I'm rolling over on my back and whimpering. Incredibly fit, very smart, very focused and nastily subtle sense of evil humor. ) Combat patches for women started showing up very quickly after Desert Shield. There is no way to ignore the assignment of women to units in combat without willful blindness. Not, of course, that I deny the existence of willful blindness in the military, government or the world at large. That would require willful blindness…
I suspect we'll see a change in assignment trees and such. But, the nature of the modern battlefield makes all lines pretty arbitrary. Where, when a major offensive weapon for the other side is a vest full of explosives detonated in a crowded marketplace or movie theatre is the combat zone? You can't delineate it anymore with maps and signs. It's there…Even more obvious to me is the change in the nature of war. A friend of mine, someone I love and admire greatly is a retired Navy Nurse, Mary Kelly. A mustang, Mary was a First Class Petty Officer and realized that she was never going to get the sort of assignments that would let her make Chief; so, she went into a nursing education program at 12 years or so service. Mary was the first female Officer in Charge of the Independent Corpsman program for the Naval Training Center at San Diego. Navy Corpsman provide the medics for the Marines – independent corpsman provide service both to the Marines combat units as their medics and for smaller ships where no doctor is assigned. She had a bought with cancer and another one with bureaucracy and retired at 28 years as a Lieutenant Commander. Anyway, my main reason for mentioning this is in this shot…a Marine Sergeant, a Marine Lance Corporal, and a Navy Corpsman working Psyops and Community Relations in Afghanistan. You cross the border into Afghanistan and you're in combat. (It's been that way since Elphinstone led his Army into Pathan country back in Flashman days, by the way. Somethings never freaking change…) The photo above shows Women Marines coming back from a patrol with AFGHAN FORCES, unloading weapons. These warriors are extraordinary, not because they are women but because of the nature of what they are doing. Making a big deal of an administrative and clerical change is just silly.
A friend of mine, a radical Catholic Feminist theologian named Mary Hunt recently published an article comparing the opening of combat assignments to women to what she regards as the inevitable opening of ordination to women to the Catholic priesthood. To an interesting extent, she's not so sure that either is really a good idea but that's just the way life is. She points out that the original opening of the majority of military occupations to women was driven by demographic realities inherent in the volunteer force. With a huge amount of the American Catholic priesthood being over 70, she doesn't see anyway the Catholic Church can avoid this. She's just not sure that on the whole, that would work to the individual woman's or women in general's advantage. There's some really cogent thinking and argument here; Mary reminds me of George Will at times, but in a good way.
Like women in combat, non-ordained people do what needs to be done pastorally and argue the details later. This is how social change happens. Laws are made and changed in response to already existing situations, not to fantasies. (My emphasis)
There are plenty of differences between these two cases. Those who promote women in combat probably do not want to change the fundamental nature of the military. Women priests already exist through ordination processes that parallel the official one, and plenty of Catholic women minister in their own ways. But what feels so dismayingly familiar is that we who struggle for justice only live to see such a fraction of what we envision.
I am not persuaded by incrementalist arguments. I do not think that women entering combat will change the bellicose ways of the US military. If anything, I think it will reinforce the importance of the warrior, re-inscribe the role of the hero who risks death and kills the enemy. That seems to me an awfully high price for equality. For priests, the entrance of women into the Roman Catholic clerical caste will reinforce the status and role of clergy and re-inscribe the power of difference (they are not lay people anymore). What a steep tab for proving the simple point of gender equality.
I find that viewpoint interesting, on target but probably not particularly relevant. Tell a group of human beings that they can't do something, however awful the something might be, and there will be some who won't be able to resist demanding to try. The presence of women in combat will not alter the nature of combat; the presence of women in the priesthood will not alter the priesthood. Fundamental change requires fundamental change. A woman warrior is a warrior; a woman priest is a priest. A cup of coffee is a cup of coffee. Lots of space inside the atom for variations that don't really alter the atom; lots of places in the organism for variation without fundamentally changing the organism. Lots of emptiness out there, more than we can fill… (To be continued, with the Filibuster, al Jazeera and related madness)
For no good reason except that my wife's ongoing adventure with colon cancer made me wonder, I scheduled a colonoscopy, and went to the Weed Army Community Hospital at Fort Irwin yesterday to do the pre-surgical consult, take the tests, fill out the paperwork. I wasn't thinking about a lot -- I was fasting in preparation for the bizillion labs I figured would be ordered, and was curious only about how long it was going to take. I had my Kindle, set to Marching With Caesar - Civil War, by R.W. Peake. Peake is a retired Marine Grunt, who has bothered to research this series of novels about a leading Centurion, one of two that Caesar mentions by name by doing such things as humping around Hadrian's Wall wearing the plate armor and carrying the gladius that these men carried. Fascinating read, and worth it...I was reasonably ready for a miserable day.
Ok, got there on-time, which meant I only had a short wait. Fox News, that staple of TV in waiting rooms throughout Pax Americana was on and the usual cast of dolts was babbling about Newtown. A couple of chairs down, a 30ish NCO getting ready for leave was waiting, and he made eye contact. Must have figured that I was wise or important or new something -- be an older, short,grey-haired, sorta in-shape guy on a military base, and people assume you're some kind of Colonel or General or something. As a retired First Sergeant, I find that amusing, not unlike Peake's Primus Pilum would have. Usually I don't get into conversations with strangers, particularly when the Right Wing Noise Machine is in full flight. But, the guy started talking..."I don't understand this. They're trying to say this guy was crazy; but man, he shot kids. He needs to be executed." Dude, the kid did have a disorder, autism, and he committed suicide. "But, I used to be a cop. How'd he get the guns? Why didn't anybody do something?" Guy was broken up about this, which surprised me a bit. He then told me that he had been talking to an Afghani while deployed who was convinced that these sorts of attacks indicated that we were an evil country. This bothered him; he was having to come to some sort of decision as to whether or not that ragheaded mofo might have actually been right.
They called me back, filled out some paperwork, took me to admitting who sent me back to the waiting room. Guy was walking down the hall to his appointment, but when he saw me, he smiled and said "Hey, Sir!" I nodded, smiled and said, "Top, not sir, and thanks, brother." While I was sitting there waiting again, the Fox noise was upset about a union organizer talking about following and harassing Republican legislators who backed anti-union measures. The waste of protoplasm babbling complained that the Republicans didn't have any organization to do similar things, that this was only the Communist-Radical-Liberal Democrats. I looked up, and made eye contact with an elderly black gentleman and asked, " Am I carzy or do these people not remember the last 6 years? did I dream that the tea party had posters calling for the execution of the President, signs with him as the Joker and people going to political meetings carrying guns? Am I crazy?" Guy looked at me, smiled and nodded.
Next stop after admitting was an EKG, more paperwork processing and a consult with the anesthesiologist. The OIC was a mid-40s Captain who told me that she had joined the Army a couple of years ago because she felt she should after a successful career as a civilian nurse. This gal has kids in college and now she's starting a career patching up kids ranging from her youngest's age through her own. She fell into the same trap as the first guy, and decided that I must be some source of wisdom. Anyway, she told me that she was troubled by so many of the young soldiers she sees. It turns out that they get a lot of soldiers admitted for basically sleep deprivation -- unable to sleep more than two or three hours in a night. Welcome to NTC, where PTSD makes you fit in! Even if admitted and medicated lightly, they can't sleep and spend the night pacing. She felt kind of helpless to help, because she'd only been in the Army two years and had only experienced Fort Sam Houston and Fort Irwin. I suggested that she think of Weed as a rural hospital with a really good trauma center...
Then they took the EKG. At 61, I have a perfect EKG for a guy in his lower 20s. This confused them, because they don't see that with people in their lower 20s. People in their lower 20s have that they see have EKGs usually suitable for someone in their 50s or 60s. I pointed out that I haven't smoked or used tobacco for 30 years; haven't drunk for over 20; am reasonably serious about working out with weights and, nobody has been shooting at me lately. Got a sad laugh from everyone.
As I was driving home, I saw lots of flags at half-staff. Public buildings, installation and so on. I thought that this habit of flying the colors at half-staff for any tragedy was a relatively new phenomonon but couldn't think of a more appropriate gesture after things like New Town. Then I learned that Daniel Inouye had died. If we continue to have heroes die and horrible tragedies punctuating our lives, the National Colors should stay at half-staff in perpetuity. I have followed Senator Inouye since I first became aware of the guy, at the Senate Watergate Hearings. A Senator and a Medal of Honor winner and an amputee from the Go for Broke Regiment who willingly took on the No Win gigs his party needed someone to take on is always going to be worth paying attention to. (Is it my imagination, or the MOH winners who have served in the Senate all been Democrats? And both suffered traumatic amputations during combat?)
I knew that I wanted to write something about the Senator, and realized that I wasn't feeling particualrly articulate today. And then I read Seymour Hersh's article in The New Yorker. The article is well-written, and brief -- and well worth the effort. He writes this in part :
"The point of all this is that sometimes reporters like me know things, or think we know things, and need someone in the know to hear them out, and perhaps provide some guidance or a sense of where to go next—and, above all, why it matters."
Oddly, the first piece I read this monring was Wonkette. Their take on the Senator was as powerful while totally brazenly off-kilter and probably would have had the old man crack a couple of smiles, and offer a drink to Tip O'Neil and Bobby Kennedy and Ted Kennedy and Pat Moynihan saying "See what Commie Girl's buddy Abdill wrote about me?" Put it to music, and he's sound like Davy Crockett...
Upon returning home, Inouye founded the state of Hawaii, which he represented in Congress every day of its statehood until today. Inouye’s approach to governance was very similar to his approach to killing Nazis, which was “shut up, I am busy doing good things here.” He walked around being a good guy and doing good things, and one day, he wanted to eat lunch with a black guy, so they walked into the House cafeteria, and just like that, it was desegregated. Because he was hungry, and that’s that. Inouye died yesterday, after 49 years and 11 months in office, likely because he received an intelligence briefing about somebody causing a ruckus at the Pearly Gates. It’s certainly taken care of by now.
Well, we certainly assume so; and, we need to figure out how, as that generation passes on, what the hell we're going to do for leadership. Clinton and Bush showed that the Boomers don't have it in them; so, we're left with...Eric Cantor? Clare McCaskill? Debbie Wasserman-Schmitt? Louis Gomert...
Yeah, things are definitely going down hill. Hope that Daniel Inouye have room at the bar for an non-politician in the hereafter. I guess if I'm dead some Bushmills would be ok, and I'll play Danny Boy on the house guitar...
George Will made a comment concerning gay marriage this morning on his weekly attempt to pretend his baseball writing isn't the only thing anyone will remember him for to the effect that the opposition to gay marriage is literally dying. Mitt Romney went to a boxing match and jinxed the guy who lost by encouraging him. Common Cause and the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives filed suit against the Senate for using the filabuster. As absentee ballots and provisional ballots continue to be counted, Romney appears to have lost by more...
Well, life sucks if you're willing yourself extinct. If you've been reading my stuff, you know that I have an unrequitted, secret love for Maureen Dowd. We're about the same age, same ethnciity, same cultural bias, same religious roots -- although I suspect she's still a practicing Catholic as opposed to an anti-theist -- and we both like words, wit and traditional Catholic social values. She went to Catholic University, I went to Holy Cross. She graduated and went off to become a practicing political reporter, then occasional columnist and then anchor columnist on Sunday and Wednesday for the Times. Me, I joined the Army so I could extend my adolescence for another 23 years, playing with guns, working out, blowing things up...I think in a lot of ways, I got the better deal.
But damn, she writes well. When she's really off her game, she's pretty good. When she's good, she's very good indeed. When she's really good, DAMN. This is one of those columns.
Her thesis, not all that different from Will's insight, is that the Republicans are going willfully extinct as a national party. She begins with an interesting anecdote:
My college roommates and I used to grocery shop and cook together. The only food we seemed to agree on was corn, so we ate a lot of corn. My mom would periodically call to warn me in a dire tone, “Do you know why the Incas are extinct?” Her maize hazing left me with a deeply ingrained fear of being part of a civilization that was obliviously engaging in behavior that would lead to its extinction. Too bad the Republican Party didn’t have my mom to keep it on its toes. Then it might not have gone all Apocalypto on us — becoming the first civilization in modern history to spiral the way of the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans. The Mayans were right, as it turns out, when they predicted the world would end in 2012. It was just a select world: the G.O.P. universe of arrogant, uptight, entitled, bossy, retrogressive white guys.
While there were a lot of contributing factors in 2012, there are moments when you just had to stand there and wonder WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY THINKING? The only really viable candidates nationally were probably Pawlenty and Huntsman and only Huntsman had a vision that didn't seem to involve hiring a witch hunter profundis and taking us all back to the dark ages. So, Pawlenty and Huntsman were gone very early. A pizza magnate, a menopausal madwoman who confused John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy when announcing her candidacy, a ego-drunk sack of hypocritical yesteryears claiming with some justification to being the intellectual center of the Republican world, W.2 -- a tall Aggie who was meaner, dumber and in this case zonked on pain medicationa troll from Texas who thinks it makes sense to base the modern world on the standards of the Roman empire, and Mitt Romney were the possibilities; in fact, most of the possibilities arose as temporarily viable because they had the virtue of not being Mitt Romney. After Romney survives a war of attrition, he then selects an Eddie Munster look alike who actually refused to explain the math behind his tax reform and budgetary plans. Romney is revealed as a lumbering clown -- of course, he did that quite well last time, and the reality showed through to the deniers with the 47% crack -- beginning at the Iowa State Fair when he argues that "Corporations are people too, my friend."
I'm not the Virginian, and you aren't Travis. Don't smile when you say that, you grinning zombie. Don't say it. Don't call me friend when you're not my friend.
Republican Convention 2012
Then we have a comedy of errors going on all 2012. Transvaginal probes. Eighty two members of the Democratic Party are card carrying members of the Communist Party. The Female body has defense mechanisms that kick in when there's legitimate rape. The sky is falling and massive inflation is right around the corner. Obama is a Kenyan Socialist Manchurian Candidate. A child conceived in rape is a blessing from God. (By that logic, Rosemary's Baby would be a blessing from God.) Cut taxes on the rich; cut spending on the poor, on education, on infrastructure. Government can't create jobs! (Particularly liked this when it was some Republican house member or Senator with 20 years seniority saying it.) We love our warfighters -- but if we take care of the Veterans, we're going to bust the budget and raise the deficit. "Hell no you won't!" Success in Libya, Iraq and a end-date to the Afgnasy (Yeah, I'm channeling the Russians here) ordeal are signs of weakness; not bombing Iran and widening that conflict at the bidding of the craziest of the Zionists in Israel; advocating war in Syria; and on and on and on...
What were they thinking?I watched the Karl Rove meltdown on Fox a couple of times and actually found it painful...but you know, facts have a way of biting you in the ass if you ignore them. I kinda, sorta actually felt bad for the guy -- he looked like a fat kid denied someone else's hotdog. The guy who coined the phrase "reality-based" as a pejorative was getting bitchslapped by that reality. As lots of commentators have noted, the facts seem to have a liberal bias these days.
Who would ever have thought blacks would get out and support the first black president? Who would ever have thought women would shy away from the party of transvaginal probes? Who would ever have thought gays would work against a party that treated them as immoral and subhuman? Who would have ever thought young people would desert a party that ignored science and hectored on social issues? Who would ever have thought Latinos would scorn a party that expected them to finish up their chores and self-deport?
I think it's possible, and patriotic, to vote against your own interests for the common good. But, the Republicans by hitching their wagons to Ayn Rand, a God not familiar to most readers of the New Testament, denigration of women, denigation of workers, greed, guns, racism and intrusion while trying to wrap it up as "Freedom!" really couldn't claim anything for the common good. Romney's dancing horse really sums them up in a way so apt; he actually believes that saying things like the trees are the right height was a way to connect. Bragging that he had always paid at least 13% was tone-deaf. Demanding greater disclosure from Ryan than he was willing to disclose to the American people on his taxes is kind of amazing. Mormons are not generally considered exemplars of chutzpah, but damn...
Expect more convulsions. We are a deeply divided country in a lot of ways, but if the Democrats stay charged up and the President takes it to the Republicans actually using the bully pulpit as opposed to occasionally polishing it with a deep coat of linseed oil, then we'll see. But right now, I see no way the Republican party as it is now survives as a relevant force.
John Boehner delivers Alternative Proposal to the White House
"Where have you gone Abbie Hoffman, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you..."
My friend, occasional collaborator in the pursuit of intellectual no-good and anarchist philosopher and professor, Crispin Sartwell has a piece up at Chesse it, the Cops that in a wry way points to the existential void of current American politics. I'm talking about, of course, the great moral issue of our time, the proposed increase in the top marginal tax rates. (Cue Jaws Music!) It's an important problem, and it is pretty much what Crispin ironically says it is about -- "what sort of country we want to be" and also, and sadly, "symbolic, I guess." Crispy does it with some panache, using Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech" to provide a rhethoricalcenter and highlighting the wonkishness of the current world contrasted with King's vision in a marvelous little bit of praeteritio and understatement.
"No, no, we are not satisfied, and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." and this mighty stream consists of 35% to 39.6% in the marginal tax rate..."
Profound irony, isn't it? So many serious issues confronting us, and this somewhat trivial technocratic twist is the sine qua non of our national existence and political discourse. I'm thankful to Crispin because it made me go to the speech and re-read Dr. King's masterpiece of rhetoric and moral passion. And if you substitue the words "ordinary people" for Negro, it is obviously applicable to us all. And, while I don't know if my cynically subtle idealist co-conspirator meant to inspire that awareness, he certainly achieved it. The issue is not the goddamned deficit -- and I am not being blasphemous there at all, because the deficit is a satanic ruse to keep our eyes off the prize. It is in fact the issue of what sort of country we want to be. Despite the professed love -- nay idolatry -- of Ronald Reagan, the right has taken his appropriation fo the phrase from Winthrop who was actually preaching from The Sermon on the Mount and taken it somewhere else. For Matthew's Jesus was talking about the Christian Community that he was willing into being as setting an example and setting a very high bar for success. We seldom read the whole thing -- I know that as a Jeffersonian anti-theist, I seldom revisit the bible. But I probably should revisit the Jefferson bible more often.
13 But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.
14 Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.
15 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
16 ¶ Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
17 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
18 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
19 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
20 ¶ Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
21 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
22 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
23 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of thescribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
So, summing up, Jesus, Wintrhop and Reagan were calling for an exemplar of the best for the illumination of the world. Although the concept is modern, it's a call for inclusion and
Boehner, McConnell, Hannity, Norquist and LaPierre Class Picture
charity. In the days of Jesus, all cities had gates; even Rome had gates. Only the most open and secure cities kept the gates open; what Jesus is calling for, what Winthrop, Kennedy and Reagan were calling for, was that lighted exemplar for the world where not only do the gates never close, there are no gates. What the Republicans and Tea Party and the American Right are calling for, demanding, and screaming for is not an open, fair and just community but a gated community, complete with barbed wire, wage slavery and vast disparities in wealth, education, access to justice and freedom. The Christian Right -- including any Catholic Bishop or higher who endorses this -- is calling for it in the name of Jesus; the libertarian Right is calling for it in the name of Adam Smith -- who thought corporations were not only unhuman but potentially and probably evil -- and Ayn Rand whom Jesus would feel sorry for, Winthrop put in the stocks and then send her off to Rhode Island with Roger Williams and the other nuts, and whom Reagna would give a jelly bean and then tell Nancy to "Please sweetheart, keep the mean crazy woman away from me..."
Not that we're looking a lot smarter on the left. People like Howard Dean and Sherrod Brown get it, but the irony is astonishing. We have a president who is articulate and smart and who, if he lets himself go with his soul, can be an inspiring and mesmerizing figure. However, most of the time he makes like Woodrow Wilson and delivers a technocratic and someone delphic pronouncement. There are a lot of ways to respond to the absurdities underlying the Ryan and the Boehner budget proposals and "fiscal cliff" rushing toward us. Referring to the stupidity of this plan, it's inherent unfairness, intellectual dishonesty and disingenuousness, and silliness as "not balanced" is just playing the game on Boehner's turf. There are big issues confronting us, and due to the last 32 years of wealth concentration at the top of the economic scale, those issues must be confronted as what they are -- fundamental questions of justice, economic fairness and levelling. Yes, the re-distribution of wealth and the re-allocation of assets.
I find particularly interesting the fact that we're harkening back to the Clinton tax era as some kind of golden age of equity and fairness and kum by ya! I don't recall it that way...for a lot of Americans it was kind of disappointing. Less disappointing than waking up today and facing this environment, but still...we're facing the conundrum of one of the corrollaries to Murphy's Law -- Before you can do anything, you have to do something else. But, if you want to do big things, dare to demand big things as a standard and an outcome; then find the methods that get there; then figure out the resources needed and get them. Don't change the outcomes based on the resources. If you have a desired outcome, and you have a workable method, then add resources and do whatever is necessary to get the resources. Screw Clinton's tax rates, you use them and validate the Republican position. USE THE MARGINAL RATES AT THE END OF THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION. Certainly that rate marked something of a high water mark in terms of post World War II recovery and the explosion of American wealth, influence and potential. Scientific, educational, social and economic potential was unlimited, and the government was focused on doing things that the country needed to have done. Highways, infrastructure, power, education and so on. At 39.6% as a top rate, we're looking at less than half what they paid in any of those watershed years where the current rate is less than the second bracket in any year but 1964. This indicates a retreat: this enshrines greed.
Year
>$10K
>$20K
>$60K
>$100K
>$250K
1956
26%
38%
62%
75%
89%
1958
26%
38%,
62%
75%
89%
1960,
26%
38%
62%
75%
89%
1962,
26%
38%
62%
75%
89%
1964,
23%
34%,
56%
66%
76%
As Rock says, stand for something!
The irony is pretty amazing to me. I'm not harkening toward some new version of America. I'm advocating the American at the height of the Pax Americana only with re-allocation of the resources to world-buildind as opposed to bigger holes to hide in and the capacity to produce bigger wholes than the other guy. Greeters and Escorts for Republican Fashonistas in the Beltway -- Making them feel welcome...
This is where Warren Buffett and Bill Gates could help. They can afford it, and the government couldn't spend money for this. It is political in impact, but it's a-political in intent. SHAME THESE BASTARDS. Here's a thought -- have mimes follow the perpetrators of the Bush tax cuts and the "we can go to war if we have more tax cuts" and just do this thing. Liz Cheney, Ann Coulter and Jan Brewer show up at the Mall, and there's a mime troupe doing " deficits don't matter!" Boehner goes to the links, and there's a troupe of mimes in the parking lot and following his party around the links miming the great "Hell no you don't!" speech.At least, do something to shame this jingoistic, ignorant and moronic twits. Or hordes of Sinatra impersonators with boombox karaoke machines, doing his version of Mrs. Robinson whenever one of these fools raises his/her/its/their heads...
You know, it bothers me that I know who Lindsay Lohan is and that I have an opinion on her. Since I remember what Elizabeth Taylor looked like in National Velvet and in Ivanhoe as well as in Cleopatra, I have some problems getting my head around the idea that she could play Ms. Taylor-Somebody-Fisher-Burton-Somebody-Burton-Somebody-Somebody. She shares a bit of the back story, but Disney seems a less paternal organization than MGM, and Lohan is not quite the lady or woman that Taylor was.
Now, I saw movies with Taylor. I've probably seen Cleopatra three times, and Ivanhoe about 6, and Christ only knows how many times I've been around one of the women in my life -- sister, wife, signficant other -- where National Velvet was going on n the background. I saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe? about three times. I have never seen a Lindsay Lohan anything. But, I know almost as much about Ms Lohan -- in some respects, more -- than I know about Taylor. I care a lot less, but there it is...
Thing is, Lohan looks as bad at 26 and change as Taylor did in full shrew appearance in Viginia Wolfe...So, she starts with less and decays more rapidly and now is going for the gold medal as whore-skank-B-Actress. Which, when I found myself looking at the HUFFPO thing that discusses her dress, I realized that my life is effectively ruled by media. In many cases, by media I don't care at all about and subjects of negative value -- seriously, every second devoted to Lindsay Lohan awareness minus critical thinking is a needless sacrifice of synapse and judgement. Lohan isn't alone in this horrid state of seige-- I know what a Kardashian is. I know who Russell Brand is; I am conscious that there is a thing called Honey Boo-Boo which should be but probably isn't a rip off of Yogi Bear's little buddy. This distrubs me. I know and follow Henri the Existentialist Cat on Twitter; I follow That Fucking Cat @TheFuckingCat on Twitter. They both are far more interesting and intelligent than any Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan.
You know who else I don't understand being conscious of in the media? John McCain. Seriously, if Lindsay Graham...err...ah, yeah ... Lohan is a meaningless media overload, what the hell is he? McCain is a like a fine cheese left in the sun too long...aged to old, looks awful, tasteless to awful and crazy to contemplate. So, why does the media pay attention to him and his deranged nonsense? And, why do any of us owe it credence?
In 2000, he had his finest hour; by 2008 he was reaching Bob Dole levels of irrelevance which made him the perfect Republican nominee and then he picked someone more obnoxious than a cross-bred Kardasian-Lohan as a running mate. He has been babbling nonsense since 2008; and, now he's decided that the UN ambassador is the logical candidate for destruction in the aftermath of a tragedy that was no one's fault -- except a congress that forced stupid cuts in things like embassy security and staffing by paid security guards instead of Marines. Dipshits like Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and McCain's beloved right wing lunatics.
What the hell? If the two most famous prisoners of war in Vietnam were were Senator McCain and Admiral Stockdale, I find it intriguing that McCain has never to my knowledge acknowledged Stockdale's leadership by example or that in reading Stockdale's writings, I can't find anything on McCain. The omission is troubling.
"Don't call me a saint; I don't want to be dismissed that easily." Dorothy Day
Ok, the election is over. The irrelevant continue babbling, and the nonidelogue technocrats who enable the ideological bastards are trying to regain some semblance of groundedness. In the annual meeting of the Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, they couldn't come up with a statement on the economy in the US. But, they decided that they'd unanimously endorse Dorothy Day for sainthood.
Oh happy day...of course, St Dotty of Staten Island would drip cigarette ashes on the proclamation, tell 'em to wrap fish in it and go do something that actually could help somebody.
Taking over the mantle of Irrelevant, clueless nonsense, the American Catholic Bishops are playing into the hands of what my old friend and consulting Feminist Radical Catholic Theologian, Mary Hunt refers to as the second largest religious denomination in the country -- the ex-Catholics some of whom like me who pay attention. By endorsing the Sainthood of Dorothy Day, they're not wrong. But, there are a lot of contradictions in that endorsement that we should probably not forget; they obviously have. Or, and this is troubling on multiple levels they don't care.
If Saint Dorothy Day wandered into the offices of the American Catholic Bishops Cabal and Chowder Sipping-Marching Society, and flipped through the policy letters posted on the bulletin board -- "No birth control paid for by insurance companies!" "Abortion is the unforgivable sin" "Religious freedom is under attack!" "Vote for the Rich, not the Democrats" and "The pederast priests were temped by the dewy butts of the altar boys so they need to be forgiven...", Then Saint Dorothy Day would snub out a cigarette in one of the bishops' cup of coffee, tell them to sell the jewelry and give the proceeds to the poor and then go hold some drunken wino's hand while he had the DTs...
She wouldn't be seen with the people who are going to cannonize her unless they were going to give the
Catholic Workers a bunch of money. This would irritate them, as would her calling them fat Mick and Dago bastards, and telling them to get off their fat asses and follow Jesus...Intentionally undiplomatic, politically incorrect, coherent, focused on the big picture and opposed to crony capitalism and accomomodation with people like Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, she's a problem for these guys who are soooooooo smooth and comfortable in the corridors of power.
She was comfortable there as well -- not because she took them seriously, but because she had a knack for cutting to the reality of the issue -- as long as people are cold, hungry, homeless, need health care and clothes and hope and education, we are revealed for the corrupt, ugly and evil species that we are. If you're not doing everything you can to fix it, you're wrong. Greed and pride in greed are sin; allowing people to need the basic necessities of life and a fair share of hope and prosperity is sin. She'd walk up to Ratzinger and say something like "Red Prada pumps? What would Jesus do? Aren't you ashamed? You should be ashamed..."
Oh, they'll pretend they love her. They'll pretend to emulate her. They'll praise her...and then go off to ask Trump and Murdoch for money for the upkeep of the facade and the whitening of the sepluchurs.
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