Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #107
Posted on July 24, 2011 in Roundup
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do. — Benjamin Franklin
Norquist and the Alienation of Congress. Who elects our representatives? Who do they represent? The Founding Fathers meant the questions to be simple ones. The answer is, of course, their constituents. But the influx of money into political campaigns and the rise of pressure groups has removed the focus of representatives from their districts.
[[Grover Norquist]] has been called the most powerful unelected politician in the country because he has persuaded 97% of the representatives in the House to sign a no tax increase pledge. The trouble that this has caused in the course of the debt ceiling talks has Americans furious with him. Trust fund baby Norquist can’t understand why they want to “pick on” the rich. Like many of his class, the difference between money you have earned yourself and money that was given to you by your parents is unclear to him. There’s a fear in the back of Norquist’s head, one that suggests that if he comes to live with the same resources as the average American family, his uniqueness and his power will disappear. Ordinariness would stifle him. He would become another voice ignored by Republican politicians because they lack money. As he would become in this nation growing more like the England of King George III than the Colonies.
But Norquist is the symptom. Congress has never been good about curbing the potency of lobbyists. Their dollars help them to keep their jobs, their fortunes, and their power. Recent Supreme Court decisions etched by Republican appointees — at least two of which have entertained conflicts of interest — have discounted the need to contain the corruption posed by campaign financing laws. Congress is up for sale and the buyers don’t want their taxes raised. So they press the politicians they own to sign Norquist’s pledge.
Marx spoke of the alienation of the worker from the product of his labor, the denial of profit to those who make with their hands the things that people buy. This concept has been adopted by right wing econobots as an aim. A similar trend can be observed in our democracy: the alienation of the voter from the product of her/his vote. Your representative is not beholden to you as much as s/he is beholden to the people who bought the seat for her/him.
So what can we do?
We still have power — power to reject the corporate choices being made in Congress by phrasing in a new way an old, unwritten standard. Instead of voting for those who make pledges to Norquist, Adam Green, MoveOn, or any other PAC, we should demand that the only pledges a Congressperson should make are to her/his constituents, that the only oath that matters is the oath of office. If we of the right, left, and center stick to this even when our own cherished issues are at stake, we will begin to see the end of the new corruption. Grover Norquist and others like him will have to take their balls and go home. Then we can pick up the vital game of constructing a nation once more.
- Politics 101 for the Far Left — They don’t like hearing these lessons, but they are true.
- Norway, Islam and the Threat of the West — When a white man commits an act of terrorism, he is labeled a “madman”. This ignores the ideology that drives such people. Then see how one self-annointed “terrorism expert” had the Twitterverse believing that the bombing and the raid were blamed on Muslims at first. All too predictable.
- The Bomb that Didn’t Go Off — A reminder that most of our acts of terrorism are homegrown. Watch not Al Qaeda, but Christian Identity. Also see this map of terrorist targets aimed at liberal and government targets since 2008.
- The forgotten right-wing past of Ed Schultz — Democrat? What kind of Democrat tells his followers to boycott an election so that the worst possible candidates take over the country?
- Former Fox producer claimed network’s “Brain room” led to phone hacking — Rupert Murdoch is not like you and me. Then there’s that other media scandal involving Aaron Schwartz. Should it even be one?
- Marcus Bachmann, Unlicensed psychologist, fraud and husband of Michele Bachmann — You should know these facts about the man who will really be running the country if you elect his wife. This is what the Koch Brothers want — dumb lackies who think they are the world.
- Most Controversial CIA Programs — These are the ones which we know enough about to talk about
- The NFL Star and the brain injuries that destroyed him — This will undoubtably be received with a yawn, but read the story.
- Around the table — You know you are in Meeting Hell when these demons manifest themselves
- Why Gay Marriage is good for Straight America — I think we get mistracked when we limit marriage to being “about the kids”. It’s about creating a family together. And that takes at least two.
- Parasites Help Reveal New Ecological Rules: Animal Species Large and Small Follow Same Rule for How Common They Are in Ecosystems
- Batman villains psychoanalyzed by mental health experts — No, The Joker is not mentally ill. He is a psychopath. There’s a world of difference.
Tweet: Terror and fear are not conscience: they are its antithesis.
“We will retaliate with more democracy” -Stoltenberg
The First Refuge of Scoundrels
Posted on July 23, 2011 in Stigma Terrorism Violence
In the wake of yet another act of terrorism by a right wing zealot, we hear the tired cry that this was the work of a “madman”. How quick people are to blame what Anders Behring Breiviks on psychosis! Do they have any evidence at this point? No. It is just an attempt to exculpate all the years of shrill talk from right wing pundits and demagogues that led up to this.
I know the darkness of psychosis personally. I have not been perfect, sometimes sadistic but never to the point where I have wreaked physical harm on others, much less attempted to kill. Do I have to cite statistics that show the so-called sane are more dangerous, that serial killers typically do not have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression — again? Do I have to show that this is the work of a sociopath who wrapped himself in the cross and the Tea Party?
I should not have to. But the Right runs like the Right always runs from the facts. Suppose I said that we shouldn’t take the 9/11 attacks seriously because bin Laden and the men who flew the planes were merely “madmen”? Would you let Al Qaeda and the various associated prophets of terrorism off the hook even if they did nothing but write and make speeches?
“Madman” is right-wing political correctness for white male terrorist.
I think we need a corollary to Dr. Johnson’s maxim about patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel. There is a first refuge that the Right always takes when its evilest impulses betray themselves: stigma. Stigma is the first refuge of a scoundrel.
I’m Picking on Batman, Again
Posted on July 21, 2011 in Stigma
I’ve gotten in trouble for this before — taken to task not only in the comments section of this blog, but also on Twitter. But what needs to be said needs to be said. Batman is teaching people awful things about mental illness, things that are not true. Take The Joker for instance. How many times have Gotham City authorities thrown him into the Arkham Asylum? Does he really belong there? Psychiatrist H. Eric Bender M.D. thinks not:
“Someone who is ‘psychotic’ is experiencing symptoms of psychosis, a mental disorder, which can include auditory hallucinations, such as hearing voices; visual hallucinations, where they see objects that are not truly there; or have delusional thoughts, despite evidence to show that such beliefs are incorrect — such as believing that one’s movements are being tracked by deep space satellites — or disorganized behavior,” Bender said. “In the vast majority of depictions, the Joker is not experiencing such symptoms; rather, the Joker has shown symptoms of psychopathy.”
Bender says psychopathy is a personality construct and not a diagnosis of a mental disorder.
“Psychopathy reflects interpersonal characteristics and behavior that are often rooted in a lack of empathy,” Bender said. “In the comics, television shows, and films, the Joker is much more akin to a psychopath and is not psychotic ((More here)) .”
What our comics and what our cinema say about mental illness transfers to the minds of people who are too lazy to pick up a genuine work about abnormal psychiatry. These same people vote and the representatives they choose make decisions that affect my life. So it behooves me to be aware of what comic books promulgate and to challenge their errors wherever possible.
Art is not above criticism for its values. It is not to be ignored when it suggests bad policy. To go by Batman, you would think that most criminals of the like of The Joker trick the system into putting them into mental institutions. Nothing is farther from the truth. As the same article notes, only 1% of all criminal cases center around legal insanity pleas and, of those, only 20% actually succeed. So we’re not in danger of giving the criminal masterminds of this world an easy ride.
What is actually happening is that many of our mentally ill end up in prisons where they are victimized by the real sociopaths. We have closed down our asylums ((Remember that word means “place of refuge” — except as run in the past, it often was not.)) and thrown the psychotic out onto the streets. To get treatment where community mental health centers have not appeared as promised, some of these have resorted to petty crimes. In jails, they get the meds they need to function, but they also get beat up and raped.
When this happens on the outside, people who might otherwise have helped turn their back because they have learned to equate the mentally ill with serial killers or other violent denizens of the demimonde. Some go past indifference to outright hostility: they beat those who are sick. And when it comes to the community, there are those psychopaths who have risen to places of power. Their lack of empathy results in policies that prevent the mentally ill from getting the treatment they should have for their sake and the sake of the economy.
I hope that when the new series starts coming out in September, Batman will become a new kind of Caped Crusader, one who knows the difference between the psychopath and the psychotic. As one of the latter, I am tired of getting the blame for crimes I don’t commit, much less imagine.
Bachmann’s Migraines: New swing on stigma
Posted on July 19, 2011 in Accountability Campaign 2012 Neurology Stigma
Once again, I find myself in the position of having to run to the defense of someone who I detest. Michelle Bachmann has migraines. This has instigated widespread tweeting on her fitness to be president. Never mind that Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy both suffered from these headaches ((And what about Lincoln’s depressions?)) . Now people who would just shrug their shoulders if this were Obama suggest that this disqualifies her for office.
There are plenty of reasons to want Michelle Bachmann at any address other than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She is mean-spirited. She hates gays and women who want control over their bodies. She rails on about pornography but has no workable plan for ending unemployment in this country. She takes her marching orders from her husband who we will not get to vet ((If he wants the power so badly, why isn’t he running for office?)) . She has lied about her qualifications for the job and about her relationship with the 23 foster children who marched through her house. She eagerly hopes that she will lead our nation into the Apocalypse. The list goes on. But migraines should not be one of them simply because we should not be in the habit of disqualifying people for every little sniffle that plagues them. Either there will be no one to elect or we will elect liars.
Stigma should not be the basis of an electoral decision. Did we not end a fight to put a black man in the White House in 2008? Are we progressives and liberals the ones who fought the hardest for the Americans with Disabilities Act — to put the disabled into the workforce? I can think of no reason to disqualify a migraine sufferer from office. If John F. Kennedy could get us through the Cuban Missile Crisis with the threat of migraines hanging over him, this issue should be dead, cremated, shot into space, and buried in a black hole.
But there’s another reason that my progressive and liberal allies can better understand: it has to do with the average voter. Our aim must be to get the average voter to concentrate on whether Bachmann will make a good president. If we raise the hype about migraines, all she needs do is assert that they don’t affect her. So what message does the average voter get? That nothing should bar Bachmann from becoming president. That’s not a message we should allow to develop. We must emphasize the issues that make Bachmann and the rest of her Tea Party host a very dangerous proposition for this country. It’s not about migraines, it is about destroying the government. Bachmann has voted repeatedly to steer us toward default and collapse of the central government. She wants to end Medicare and Social Security. I do not doubt that she would like to see the Americans with Disabilities Act repealed in full or in parts. These don’t disqualify her, but they amount to solid reasons for voting her out of any kind of government job. Michelle Bachmann is one of the worst candidates for the presidency at this time. If her migraines miraculously disappeared, she would still be. Her politics should be what we focus upon, not the pains in her head.
Dream
Posted on July 19, 2011 in Dreams
This dream occurred several days ago. Sorry for the delay.
I’m at a pet store, maybe with Lynn. I have several aquariums at home which I’ve left to deteriorate. I’ve come to get new fish and trade in some of the ones that I have. Several deals transpire. I arrange most of my fish into clean tanks. I have one large tank left filled with angel fish, sharks, and gold fish shaped like puffers. The store owner shows me his reptiles. He produces one snake that has irregular, flat lead crystals sticking out from its body at right angles. It has a pair of feet just behind the head. He sets it down on the floor. Immediately, it snatches a twelve-inch long gold dust gecko from a tropical rain forest display and swallows it. I go out the back to look at the goats. My job is going to be to take care of them. They have mangy hair. Some are missing eyes.
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #106
Posted on July 17, 2011 in Roundup
“It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it’s an irresponsible government that fails to choose.” -Tony Blair
War on the Middle The Tea Party and the regressive progressives share a common goal: to eliminate the middle. A few months ago, the Tea Party announced that it would set its sights on all those moderate Republicans who did not conform to their values. If you have wondered about the Republican lockstep, this is why. What is left of the moderates is terrified. There are none in it who wish to lose their cushy Congressional jobs.
“Moderates have no core values” says one Tea Party leader. They are subject to the winds is the implication. Beyond that is a deeper, darker implication: they have no morals so we are right to destroy them. The Tea Party cares little about the Left — whose loudest and possibly least representative voices share its aim to eliminate the Middle. The regressive progressives are angry because the president “has not led” — has not pushed through their program. Like the Tea Party, they believe the Middle is against them — secret agents of the other force in American politics.
What the Tea Party knows and the regressive progressives deny is that the moderates hold many left wing values such as the right of a woman over what happens to her own body and health care for all. Their work to bring all parties to agreement is what irritates the progressives. This, in itself, is a core value of moderates: develop unity where you can.
The Middle is about patience and listening. It is about observing where the bottlenecks are in our common life and developing a consensus. It is about testing and proving what works, what is politically possible. It turns its back on the racism and sexism of the extreme Right. It does not allow itself to be seduced into haste by the anger of the extreme Left. It has a clear vision of an America where we all get along. This is the value that both rightist and leftist extremists subvert. They want turmoil so they can seize control. In their eyes, the Middle must be destroyed. And this makes them both a threat to America. ((Let me say this: America has a shortage of sincere conservatives and sincere progressives. Actually the problem is more like this: we exist but we are ignored by the juggernauts out to overturn our nation.))
In times of crisis, extremists on all sides denounce moderates. Witness the treatment of Lincoln during the Civil War. But in retrospect, they turn out to be precisely what the nation needs. It is when they lose control of the struggle to hotheads that the nation is most in peril.
- G.O.P.’s No-Tax Stance Is Outside Political Mainstream — Someone noticed! Also see Paul Krugman describing how the GOP “got to crazy”. Guess what: if you didn’t see it coming, you are part of the problem. Also see why what the Republicans is doing is treason
- Barack Obama and the myth of progressive majorities — A look at the numbers shows a different history from the one some so-called progressives are spinning
- Mitch McConnell: We Must Rewrite The Constitution Because ‘Elections’ Haven’t ‘Worked’ — When he doesn’t get his way, he threatens this
- Five Reasons Why the Obama GM Restructuring Worked — Whine all you like, the fact is we saved the company and saved the jobs
- Has Roger Ailes hacked Americans’ phones for Fox News? — He’d be bored to tears with mine, but you never know what gets the bastard off!
- Fake social media accounts are just beginning to show destructive power — The real evil of our age
- CIA’s Fake Vaccination Drive Angers Public Health World — OK, it got Bin Laden. But do free vaccinations deserve this tarnish?
- Tech designed for the space shuttle program that we all can enjoy
- 50 Reasons I reject evolution — Can you make it 51? Creationists say they need just one more before they will be convinced of the absurdity of their position.
- Swarms of Locusts Use Social Networking to Communicate — Grasshoppers tweet? Or are we learning something about the voracious rampage that was the Casey Anthony trial? And look here: I agree with the Pope!
Care to comment? Check out my comments policy.
Bemusement Parks and Drama Queens
Posted on July 11, 2011 in Anxiety Micro-blogging Reflections
Twitter has been delivering me to a state not unlike a dead whale on the beach, roasting in the sun. This is my own fault. I “have” to keep checking it to see what the news is. Then I get into arguments about just what the role of the president of the United States is supposed to be. He’s not a dictator, I point out. He doesn’t get to write the laws and he doesn’t instruct Congress on how to vote. But they keep coming around with the same old arguments and imply that I am delusional, that I don’t understand the real nature of power in this country.
It’s become a bemusement park, full of drama queens, and I am the first up to put on the rouge and the cheap blond curls, screaming my politics like a shrill aria. At this historic impasse in American history, I find myself trembling on the inside with rage at accounts without faces. What disturbs me is that I feel I might be the only one wondering if the emotion is getting out of control. While I have my supporters (the numbers are on the increase), I’ve devoted too much time to combating the cynicism and the myths being spewed by the ignorant and the tools.
I give people advice — like don’t pay any attention to the tools. Concentrate on the good people. Stick to message. But my Seesmic windows remain cluttered by the rants and retorts of people who just can’t let go of their stalkers ((I just messaged one friend about a fellow who keeps coming back at her with new accounts: “He’s what we call a Troll. His purpose is to make you waste time and energy so you don’t get your message out.” I’m an old hand at this.)) .
Of course, my therapist says I should just walk away from Twitter. Maybe I should just let people have the world they seem to want so badly. I’m not into secret agent games. I know that my life is pretty pointless and unimportant. No number of chat victories will make me vital to the intellectual life of the nation.
But between me and sanity is the Door. Closing the portal on the other side means divorcing myself from other minds who share my interests and concerns. So what have I to gain?
Right now, I’d just like to spend more time with people who don’t need makeup and wigs.
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #105
Posted on July 10, 2011 in Roundup
UPDATE: The fact that John Boehner announced just minutes before this went to press that he was rejecting Obama’s deal suggests that our president knew what he was up to. He has just given the Republicans everything they need to commit political suicide. My comment for the week is still worth reading, I think.
Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them. -Ogden Nash
Schultzoids and Hamsher Wheels. I’ve been challenged this week by members of the regressive left who are angry with Obama ((You might ask why Obama isn’t more like Bernie Sanders. It is a good question and goes to the heart of my argument. Bernie Sanders enjoys the luxury of being in a position to be the conscience of the Senate. It’s an important role. Someone has to take the stands that are right so that we know what they are. Obama, on the other hand, was elected to be an administrator. His job is more problematic. He must be sure that the country doesn’t stop running or default on its obligations. If Bernie Sanders was in Obama’s position do you think he would allow the Republicans to close down the government and force the nation to cease honoring its bonds? No, he would do what he had to do. Both men are honorable. A president who defiantly allowed the country to fail would not earn my vote a second time.)) . The chief argument they give for their rage is that Obama “hasn’t led like he should have.” One Discordian whined that the president only tries when he is sure he can win. I asked him in return “If you were the manager of a baseball team would you tell your players to swing at every ball?” He replied that it was a stupid analogy because everyone knows that if you don’t swing, you get walked.
Someone doesn’t know baseball ((If a ball goes over the plate and you could have swung at it, the umpire calls a strike. Three of those and you are out. Swinging at a ball which doesn’t go over the plate isn’t a missed opportunity — it’s a waste of energy.)) . Or politics.
These regressive progressives have been infected by a false notion by the Tea Party: politicians must never compromise. But that’s not what we elect politicians for: we elect them to get the best deal that is politically possible. Obama has to deal with the House we elected in November and make compromises on matters like the budget and the debt ceiling or the government will stop, its bonds default ((So let them! some cry. And give the Tea Party what it wants?)) . Elected officials are not dictators nor are they magic fairies that swing their wand and win over the other side — especially not in these times when the Tea Party is controlling the House and is out to destroy the economy so that they can preserve their precious, destructive tax cuts.
Jane Hamsher and Ed Schultz lead the charge here. Given Hamsher’s ties to the Tea Party and Schultz’s former(?) affiliation with the Republicans, it is not hard to think that there is something more going on here. What is clear is that both are playing their followers like Stradivarius knock-offs. And the young people who weren’t around to see good men like Jimmy Carter and John Tunney forced out by Reagan and Hayakawa don’t see that they, too, are the Tea Party.
Who says that the GOP doesn’t tolerate dissent? They love it when stupid confrontation undermines the Democrats.
- When the Left Wing uses Right Wing Methods to Attack Themselves — The Tea Party borrowed a lot from us and what do we do? We kick ourselves!
- America’s debt: Shame on them: The Republicans are playing a cynical political game with hugely high economic stakes — This should be our focus.
- Why the U.S. is not a Christian nation — This should be taught in civics courses across the nation as a corrective to the falsehoods being spread by Christian demagogues.
- Post hoc ergo propter hoc — Someone noticed that job numbers went down after the GOP took over the House
- Why We Can’t Win Any Messaging Battles — Take notes. Take notes.
- It’s time to overrule the Supreme Court on campaign finance reform — Hear hear!
- The U.S. Passed Mandatory Health Insurance In 1798 Under President And Founding Father, John Adams — Sorry, “Tea Party”, but you are against history.
- Amnesty International Warns of Dark Times for Lawyers as Repression Intensifies in China — This is the country which makes the clothes you buy at Walmart and Target
- Watching a Trial on TV, Discussing It on Twitter — What happens when people are tried on the Internet.
- Tongue makes the difference in how fish and mammals chew — Fishies just shove it back and mammals grind it up — which makes sense given that they don’t have a constant stream of water shooting through them.
- Brain co-opts body to produce moral behavior
Be sure to read my comments policy.
The Talent of Depression
Posted on July 9, 2011 in Depression
I’m surrounded by people who tell me that everyone has a talent. Years of aptitude testing followed by generous explorations into various careers and skills have led me to the conclusion that my special genius is for being depressed about 10% to 90% of the day, depending on whether I have taken my medications, exercised, and beaten myself up. I know the slough with all its sinks and murky places well. The leeches who live here find their way into every crevice, drawing not happiness but energy from me. I seek relief by reading, walking the dog, or tweeting. Sustained effort is required to pound the quivering mudflats into stillness. Every now and then, when I believe that I have bested it, an gray egret pierces me in my sleep and I wake to despond.
I tell you. It’s a gift.
An open letter to Ed Schultz
Posted on July 7, 2011 in Accountability Civic Responsibility Class
I wrote to ed@edschultzshow.com concerning recent events. You should, too.
Doubtless you will be all over Obama for his dealing with the Republican House. But we would not be in this place if it hadn’t been for you telling people to stay home in 2010.
I am 53 years old and disabled. For ethical reasons, my wife and I have chosen to support ourselves rather than take money away from people who might need it more. Now they will have even less. Our retirement plans include Social Security. (We are not rich.)
Because we knew so much was on the line, we made sure we voted in 2010. But I kept running into people — followers of your show — who chose to punish the Democrats for not going all the way with health care. They sat out the election per your exhortations.
This last election was decided by turnout more than any other factor. With the Congress we have, there was no other deal that Obama could make. I hold you responsible and I will hold you responsible for his loss in 2012 unless you take responsibility for what you did and tell America that you are sorry. You owe it to us.
UPDATE: The White House made it clear that there has been no change in Obama’s position on Social Security. Which means that any reforms to Social Security should not “slash benefits”. Back in January, he spoke about a bipartisan consensus that would solve the structural problems with Social Security without depriving people. This has not changed, the White House says. So exactly what are we protesting? Is this more tantrumism? Too many progressives are screaming “Obama let us down!” But what do they have to say about the Tea Party Congress they helped elect? Where are their attacks on the GOP? Don’t they remember how bad things were under GWB? (If they don’t, are they really old enough to vote?) This “my way or the highway” is what got the Tea Party in power. Use your freedom of speech to say how wrong it is.
Beyond Stigma Education: Life or Death Politics for the Bipolar
Posted on July 5, 2011 in Bipolar Disorder Civic Responsibility Class Stigma Taxes
Ask most people living with bipolar what threatens them most from society and they will say stigma. This past year, that answer should have changed. After the disease itself, we are most threatened by the same things that affect other Americans: The playing field has been tilted for all and we are sliding into a boiling pot of poverty and lack of treatment.
Yesterday, I was saddened by the news that my state legislature — that of California — cravenly chose to avoid raising taxes and made drastic cuts to social spending beginning, as they always do, with cuts for programs supporting the recovery of the mentally ill. It was not as if we have raised taxes to the maximum level and still are wanting for enough. America’s taxes are the second lowest in the developed world and, for some, the economy is paying them off well. AHnold Schwarzeneggar produced a generous tax cut for millionaires. In Minnesota, Republicans are staging a government shutdown because they don’t want to raise taxes back to levels where we could support these programs. Again, let me say America is not broke. We are the richest country in the world thanks to what has been a generous economy in our past. But the money has flowed straight to the wealthy and less than 1% has gone to people like you and me.
A video celebrating patriotic millionaires who are calling for their taxes to be raised says “Millionaires are the result of a healthy economy, not its cause.” And our economic tenets are twisted. To say that our values are crazy at this time is an insult to those of us with serious mental health problems. But this is a matter of stigma that I have dealt with before on this blog and right now it is not what I think should be the chief concern of people with bipolar disorder. The Republicans are out to destroy our ability to find and hold jobs, to receive appropriate treatment. If you are not lucky like me, you may find yourself on the street in the next few years. And that is a kind of disenfranchisement that we should not tolerate.
The issue is taxes, taxes that could give us a life but aren’t being raised because of an insane addiction on the part of the GOP to lowering them ever lower. We must reject the Republicans and vote — if not for ourselves, then for our peers — to put them out of office. Of course, we must avoid grandiosity, but this is holy war. If the Republicans succeed people like us will be put out on the streets to die. Higher taxes for the wealthy can save us and our friends. We fought against suicide, hallucinations, and paranoia. This challenge lies in the real world. The Republicans of old are dead and in the thrall of people who want you homeless or dead. Stand up for your right to be human and to contribute to this society of ours.
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #104
Posted on July 3, 2011 in Roundup
I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. –Bill Cosby
Dirty tricks. It has finally sunk into the Democratic leadership what progressives and liberals on Twitter has known for two years: that when the Republicans are not the leading power in our country, they do everything they can to sabotage the Democrats. Their blackmail and obstruction strategy goes against the oath they take as representatives, which is to preserve and to protect these United States.
I think we have lost sight of what representation is for. First, there’s the matter of who to blame for our government’s policies. We forget that most of the things that we fault the president for are really the fault of the Congress which passes the budget and enacts the laws. We can’t turn to the president for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, for example, because he cannot overturn it by himself. Obama is right for saying that the people must lead on this issue and pressure their legislatures for change. The same is true of jobs, net neutrality, the two wars, Guantamano Bay, etc.
Second, are our expectations. We take positions and then insist on no way except our way. Now the Democrats have been willing to compromise — more willing than many progressives wish. The tactic in this last Congress has been to begin with past Republican issues in order to seize a quick compromise. But the Republicans are out to avoid compromise at all costs so that they might bring the Democrats down. Other governments with political parties such as Germany do not fall into this trap. They agree on a series of principles — including jobs and social services — that they attempt to protect while devising solutions and balancing the budgets.
The Germans have a country of which to be proud. My friends over there are shocked that the fascism of the Tea Party has been allowed to thrive here.
The Republicans have become obsessed with ever lower taxes despite evidence that shows that the tax cuts have not produced employment. It is clear that they represent only 2% of the population, that they have become the equivalents of reactionary parties in the banana republics. Do we really want to allow ourselves to be the world’s largest third world country?
- The Debt Limit Option President Obama Can Use — This piece by a Republican economist came out several weeks ago, but only now is getting notice. Best quote: “Preventing default is no less justified than using American military power to protect against an armed invasion without a congressional declaration of war.”
- The Single Greatest Threat to America — With eradication on their lips and corruption driving their elections, there can be no doubt who it is. Also see this Salon story on Eric Cantor’s conflict of interest. And then there is this bit about whether the president can be bipartisan in times when, frankly, one of the parties refuses to do anything except pander to the rich. Finally, see what the Republicans have done aside from creating jobs.
- Countries where you could go to jail for calling the president a dick — And I am glad that this is not one of them. Still, Mark Halperin deserves the scorn he’s been getting. Haven’t we had enough penis in the news lately?
- 14 Propaganda Techniques Fox “News” Uses to Brainwash America — As the person who gave me this said, most of the people reading this probably already know….
- A Dirty Business: New York City’s top prosecutor takes on Wall Street crime — It’s not so easy to nail a dirty stock market billionaire.
- Flooding of Ancient Salton Sea Linked to San Andreas Earthquakes — And now for a little local reporting….
- Why I’m Not a Long-Term Traveler — A friend explains why home makes you appreciate what you see on a trip more
- Why Do These Cost So Much? — An artist lays out the facts about the price of his work
- Is Facebook the Right Place to Report a Crime? — A story that the media misreported gets its fact check
- Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight — Given the stigma surrounding borderline disorder, this is brave indeed.
