Category Archives: Hypocrisy

June 14, 2013 · 1:39 pm

Unchristian Kindness

999272_547359685320649_674475798_nMany posts on FaceBook (far too many) make cruel and mean statements about our brothers and sisters. For example, here is one lately making the rounds to your left.

So you should like this post if you agree with its sentiments. And what are those sentiments? Well, clearly, if you need assistance to buy food, you should not be spending the government benefit you receive on a pleasurable experience, namely, dining out. The person(s) who developed this visual clearly believe in its message, since they chose to make Like the preferred answer. Note the exclamation point at the end of “if you agree”. There is no such punctuation at the end of “Comment if you disagree.” So it’s safe to assume the developers believe their boxed statement to be true.

Consider that the purpose of food stamps is to help people buy food to eat. That’s what the guidelines for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program say: “Foods for the household to eat.” It further specifies that the ‘foods’ include “bread and cereals, meat and poultry, fish, dairy products”, things that most people think of when they think of food. But it also specifies that “In some areas, restaurants can be authorized to accept SNAP benefits from qualified homeless, elderly, or disabled people in exchange for low-cost meals.” So using them in restaurants was contemplated and specifically laid out in the statute providing the SNAP benefits.

And why not? Dining out is a pleasurable experience. Why should people on food stamps be denied that? It’s not like they’re going to the Ritz Carlton’s dining room. And in order to qualify for SNAP benefits, they’ve got to demonstrate a need. So there’s no offshore account in the Cayman Islands hiding in the background. Frankly, if the restaurant accepts the food stamps, there’s no reason SNAP recipients shouldn’t eat there.

So what’s behind the obvious animus in the visual? I believe it’s this: our inherent belief that the other guy is ripping off the system that we pay into. We so easily accept the belief that people who require government assistance are lazy, shiftless, scheming cheats, and the meme travels at lightning speed within our limited worlds. We-and I mean all of us-have a tendency to assume the worst about our fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth. Put two people in a room alone and I give them 30 minutes before they find a reason to look down on each other.

Look how it affects people who do use SNAP benefits. Here’s one mother’s comment:

 I am furious at some of the comments posted here. Yes there are some that take advantage of food stamps and welfare. But there are a lot of individuals that are going through a rough patch and need the help like my family. I work full time, I pay taxes but because I hit a rough patch. I don’t deserve to eat a restaurant, even it is only once a month. My kids don’t deserve to be treated every once in a while. So they don’t deserve it. Most of you on here are so ignorant. I don’t think restaurants should accept it but to say we are lazy because we are on food stamps. Tell that to my kids who dont get to see their mom because she is working 12 hour days to pay the bills.

The sad part of this is that the developers of the visual above, and the people who are sending it around the internet, would most probably describe themselves as loving christians, and if they didn’t belong to an organized church, they would no doubt subscribe to christian principles. It is these same christians who, like Pharaoh long ago, have hardened their hearts against the weakest of us. They need to take a long hard look at how they express their christian values, because to us nonbelievers, they sure as hell look like hypocrites, mountebanks, and phonies.

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June 1, 2013 · 5:33 pm

McCarthy Redux

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been said to have been a brilliant student at Harvard Law School. But it is hard to reconcile that successful law school experience with the arrogance he has demonstrated, the preposterous claims he has made, and the outrageous policies he espouses. Take, for example, that 2010 speech he made in which

English: Ted Cruz at the Republican Leadership...

English: Ted Cruz at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

he alleged that there were 12 communists on the faculty of the law school. Yes, he was that specific: there were 12. And he knew who they were. Sort of. More like he knew who he thought were communists. It was the type of accusation made by that paradigm of virtue, Senator Joe McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), in the early 1950s, when he was getting on a role, the world felt an incredibly dangerous place, and people were building fallout shelters in their backyards because they thought nuclear war with the USSR was imminent. The same Joe McCarthy who averred he had a list of 205 communists working in the US State Department, but who never produced his list of names.

In response to such a scurrilous allegation, the late Senator William J. Fulbright (D-Arkansas) said, “The junior senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatreds and prejudices of the American people that he has started a prairie fire which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.” The junior senator from Texas has now entered that same arena, and it seems likely that he has no idea that his words could start a fire even more devastating than McCarthy’s. It is probably useless to point out to Cruz that there are no communists on the Harvard Law faculty, and that law faculties tend to have professors who could be described as ‘left-leaning.’ It is the nature of academics that liberals gravitate to it while conservatives tend to enter businesses. Fortunately, the New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer called him out on this, yet even then his spokesperson insisted that Cruz was speaking the truth. Hardly.

Where else does he go off the rails. Well, given where the country is in the same-sex marriage debate, with a majority of millenials wondering why there’s such fuss about it, Cruz had something to say about Dallas’s mayor marching twice in gay pride parades: “When a mayor of a city chooses twice to march in a parade celebrating gay pride that’s a statement and it’s not a statement I agree with.” Ok, homophobic. Check.

Or course, is against abortion. Very Christian. Neanderthal.

Joe McCarthy had a good run. He was born into a devoutly Catholic family. (There seems to be a high correlation between devout Christianity and outrageous politics, but more on that when I write about His Emptiness, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.) He was originally a Democrat but lost his first election, so he switched to the Republican party. He was elected judge of the 10th judicial circuit in Wisconsin in 1939, publishing slanderous materials about his opponent. After serving in the US Marines in World War II, he ran against Robert M. La Follette in 1946, where he accused La Follette of making a profit from the war and failing to join the military to fight. In fact, La Follette bought a radio station with a slim profit margin and was too old to join the military, but those truths meant nothing to McCarthy. He won, showing just how bad a job the American public does sorting out truth from fiction. On his first day in Congress, he called a press conference to give his views on how to end a coal miners’ strike then in full swing. (Does that arrogance sound familiar?)

He went along for a few year, failing to capture the nation’s attention. But then an investigation started into allegations that he had taken bribes from the Pepsi-Cola corporation. If proved, he might have been expelled from the Senate. He consulted with his closest advisors, which included a Catholic priest, who advised hi

Joe McCarthy - Colorized

Joe McCarthy – Colorized (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

m to begin a campaign to rid the government of communists. On February 9, 1950, in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he held up that infamous piece of paper that he said contained the names of communists working for the government. It must have been then that he realized he could soar on slander and innuendo. He ran for the senate seat of the senator who investigated his allegations of communists in the woodwork and won. By that point senators were afraid of him and he continued his outrageous demagoguery.

What did him in was television. He took on the US Army in an investigation of undesirables and it was televised. People of all stripes could finally see what a bully he was, and how he offered no proof for his shocking claims. Harry Truman said of him, “This is the first time in my experience, and I was ten years in the Senate, that I ever heard of a Senator trying to discredit his own Government before the world….” The most dramatic remonstrance was Joseph Welch‘s comment to McCarthy after the senator was ripping into a witness: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

McCarthy was finally censured by the Senate for his behavior. He died of acute hepatitis brought on by alcoholism in 1957.

Do you seen the similarities between Senator Cruz and Senator McCarthy? What can be expected is that Cruz will eventually go too far. He has already alienated most members of the Senate. No one likes him. But he doesn’t seem to care, and like Joe McCarthy goes blithely on stating absurdities and horrendous policies. He will crash and burn, but not before much collateral damage is done. Reasonable people can only hope that his time on the national stage is short.

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December 11, 2012 · 2:48 pm

The Politics of Silliness

Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

Allen West in Joe McCarthy's Neighborhood

Allen West in Joe McCarthy’s Neighborhood (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

The latest news on American politics has President Obama declining to play any more games with the Republican opposition, and member of that opposition thinking about how they are going to force the president over a barrel with their intransigence on raising the national debt level in the new year. I hate to point out to the GOP that they lost the election, Mitt’s not in the White House, and both the senate and the house are going to welcome some more Democrats in January. Yet they still think that they have leverage. For what, I wonder? For ‘entitlement’ cuts?

They’ve essentially got nothing left to work with. Boehner and his merry band are going to be held responsible for any rise in taxes that may take place if the White House and the House of Representatives can’t come up with a bargain. If they hold the debt ceiling hostage again and bring the country to the point of default, they will have abrogated their right to govern. The GOP at that point should cease to exist.

Why are they pursuing such silly politics? Can they not separate running for office from governing? We’ve got a country out there that is rife with problems, that needs responsible leaders who try to work together to actually help solve problems. Why is this such a difficult concept for Republicans to understand. More and more they remind me of Captain Queeg in “The Caine Mutiny”, a marvelous film (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046816/) about a mentally unstable ship’s captain who is finally relieved of his command. I mean, how much more craziness do Republicans have to show us before we need to remove them from power? Por ejemplo:

  • ”And what a bizarre time we’re in, when a judge will say to little children that you can’t say the pledge of allegiance, but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and you should try it.” Michele Bachman

  • ”This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”

    —Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, rewriting history while speaking at a Connecticut fundraiser about the war in Afghanistan, which President Bush launched following the 9/11 terrorist attacks (July 2, 2010)

  • ”I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners.”

    —Mitt Romney, after being asked whether he follows NASCAR racing (February 2012

I haven’t even bothered to quote Todd Akin or Richard Mourdock on their ideas about rape, pregnancy, and women. Or Allen West, a completely bat-shit crazy black conservative who believes Obama is a marxist. This club seems to have an endless supply of loonies.

And then, of course, there are the Republican governors who, through serendipitous happenstance, find themselves in a state government controlled by their own party. What do they do? Well, for one they want to gut unions under the guise of making their state a ‘right-to-work’ state, where, as so disingenuously put it, no one can force a worker to pay union dues. They appear to be ignorant of the fact that all workers can opt out of unions right now, without this further legislation, so that can’t be the reason. Of course, it has to be to gut the unions, which traditionally vote democratic, and to get the same work for less pay. There is no evidence that Michigan’s hastily passed legislation will do workers any good. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/11/1314751/snyder-right-to-work/

When a governing party puts members in charge of committees they are antithetical to, when it lies blatantly to the people it is supposed to help, and when its leaders are prepared to allow the country to default on its bills (bills this party helped run up in the last 12 years), then it’s time for them to go. So GOP, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

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August 1, 2012 · 4:39 pm

Republican Smarts, or Lack Thereof

An hour ago word came through that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, by a vote of 256 to 171, passed a bill extending the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts through 2013. But of course, there

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 06: Speaker of the Hous...

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 06: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) holds a brief press conference after the weekly House GOP caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol June 6, 2012 in Washington, DC. The House Republican leaders said that letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthest Americans expire would be harmful for the economy and proposed the cuts be extended for a year so Congress could reform the tax code. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

is no chance that the measure will pass the Senate. So the Republicans have once again wasted precious time with window dressing while neglecting to address any substantive issues (unless you count abortion, which is substantive to the members who still can’t get past the Roe v. Wade decision in the early 1970s).

This current flock of snake charmers and con men (and women) who fashion themselves legislators have been a bitter disappointment. They have done literally nothing to find any small clod of common ground with the Democrats that might actually help the rest of us. Obama’s jobs bill, which incorporates so many Republican ideas of yesteryear (read 3-5 years ago) has not even been taken up for discussion. Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burns!

Eric Cantor - Caricature

Eric Cantor – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

It is embarrassing to have a Congress this dysfunctional, this unable to agree on something to improve the economy and tackle the twin ogres of tax cuts for the super rich and Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security reform. Each time I see John Boner and Eric Can’tor striding purposefully through a congressional hallway, I bristle because I know they are on their way to do nothing once again. And what is this fixation with contraception and abortion? Why aren’t they screaming for laws forbidding vasectomies? Maybe they have a castration complex?

This checkmate scenario has gone on too long, and there is no question that the Republicans have been behind it. It’s hard to believe that the public will not see them for what they are, a cowardly crew running scared from the fanatics and lunatics who somehow won election in 2010. Boner can’t control his caucus, Can’tor is sharpening his knives, just waiting to plunge them into Boner’s chest so he can have that prize title of Speaker. Do the people need to rebel to stop this madness? Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Abigail Adams in February 1787, said:

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong but better so than not be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

Perhaps it’s time for the rest of us to stand up and oppose this nonsense.

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July 27, 2012 · 4:52 pm

Mr. Romney Fails to Impress

Mitt Romney has managed to make a fool of himself on a national stage. Ostensibly to demonstrate how he could be ‘presidential’, the Mittster is on a tour of Great Britain, Israel, and Poland. (Nice combination, huh?) But he has managed to cram his foot into his mouth at least three times, pushing it in deep.

Now you would think that a pol who was governor of Massachusetts and ran for president before would have an idea on how to behave. But you would be–wrong! Does he really not know he’s not supposed to mention any connection to Britain’s MI6? Is he that brain-dead that he can’t remember Ed Miliband’s name? Is his heart so shriveled that he couldn’t find a way not to criticize the Brits on the eve of their

English: Sarah Palin at the Time 100 Gala in M...

English: Sarah Palin at the Time 100 Gala in Manhattan on May 4, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Olympic moment? He boggles the mind.

Anyone with a degree from Harvard and the know-how to put together a business like Bain Capital cannot be stupid. But they can lack emotional intelligence, be unable to connect with people not in their socioeconomic class, and not give a jot for how the ‘little people’ are doing. And that is Mr. Romney in a nutshell.

I fail to see how Republicans can feel heartened by Mitt’s performance. Charles Krauthammer, Fox News’s heaviest intellectual hitter, could only say,  ”It’s unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible. I’m out of adjectives.” And this tour de force was in a country that’s our friend. What will happen in Israel? or Poland?

Just between you and me, I can only feel gleeful. Every mistake, faux pas, or stupid, vacuous statement (a lá Sarah Palin) that is makes is music to my ears. Because it’s clear he is simply not presidential!

Mitt Romney in 2007 in Washington, DC at the V...

Mitt Romney in 2007 in Washington, DC at the Values Voters conference (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And I have to hope that independents, along with a healthy portion of Republicans, can see that, too.

The maddening part of this experience is how cheated Americans are when candidates are poor. We expect people who want to be president are tactful, briefed, and articulate. Romney is none of these. His statements are full of gobbledegook, and his positions change faster than the wind. The only thing he has going for him is his looks, which are presidential but not enough to lead the nation.

As the GOP encouraged Tea Party candidates to run for office and be elected, diminishing American government incredibly, so their months-long primary battle, with a line-up that looked more like a comedy audition, let the people down. None of the candidates running for president would be viable, but still the GOP supported them. It’s like the Republicans want the country to fail.

As for me, I just hope the Mittster keeps failing. I trust him to comply.

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· 3:43 pm

The Devil is the Catholic Church

His Emptiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has named a new archbishop for San Francisco, Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone. What makes this an unerringly unfit appointment is Cordileone’s militant homophobia. He was instrumental in orchestrating the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay marriage in California, and he is also one of only 18 prelates who have signed something called the Manhattan Declaration, a pledge to protect “the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty,” even if doing so means violating the law.

English: Pope Benedict XVI during general audition

English: Pope Benedict XVI during general audition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So what has Benedict done? Installed one of the most prominent anti-gay Catholic officials in the United States in one of the gayest cities in the 50 states. If that isn’t a slap in the fact to gays and lesbians, then it is one of the most ignorant actions a pope has taken in some time. It is clear the Church intends to continue to make life more difficult–if it can, and that’s questionable–for gays who still believe in the pablum the Church calls its magisterium, its teaching authority.

The Church hierarchy has, for centuries, declaimed same sex attraction as a sin. That is true even though homosexuality was rampant in the religious orders of both genders. They still cling to the damnable lie that gay sex is wrong. But they have let go of the other sins in the Old Testament, like killing witches (“A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.” Leviticus 20:27) or trimming your beard (“Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.” Leviticus 19:27).

The Catholic Church pursues this issue even though nothing in the New Testament indicates that Jesus had anything to say against gay men and women. That might be because the whole concept of sexuality was different in those times. The term ‘homosexuality’ was not even coined until the late 19th century. And still they persist.

While the Church avers that homosexual acts are the devil’s work, the truth is just the opposite. It is the Church that is the devil, pursuing what may be its final quarry because they have lost so much ground on the tenets of their faith. Very few Catholics in the US pay attention to the Church’s pronouncements. And why should they? The rantings of the old men in the Curia and an octogenarian pope who have never had sex (at least, that’s what they tell us!) have no relevance to the rest of us.

If you think about the issue of religion long and hard, and especially about Christianity, you will reach the point where you stop believing in god. And if there is no god, then all of the other crap churches, mosques, and synagogues have been broadcasting means absolutely nothing. The Catholic Church is now one of the enemies of progress, but unlike in the Middle Ages, when it had real power, it is a shadow of its former self. Benedict himself has proposed a smaller church with more hardcore believers, and the smaller the better.

For my brothers and sisters who still cling to the fantasy that is religion and are willing to suffer abuse and discrimination in this life in the hope of having an eternity of joy in heaven, I have two words for you: Stop It! It is bunk!

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July 10, 2012 · 9:16 am

Banish Them to the Wilderness!

If anyone has not yet caught on to what the Republican right is up to, it is time to open your eyes wide and take your hands away from your ears. They are working tirelessly to buy this election, seeking to put a man with no seeming convictions into the Oval Office, leading what, for the time being, is the most powerful nation in the world.

Oval Office, desk 1

Oval Office, desk 1 (Photo credit: Truthout.org)

They are not interested in the welfare of the middle class or the poor. They are obsessed with making sure the wealthy are more comfortable and protected.

It is impossible not to see they are attempting to develop an oligarchy.

Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning “a few”, and ἄρχω (archo), meaning “to rule or to command”)[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass their influence from one generation to the next. –Wikipedia

English: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson recieve Wo...

English: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson recieve Woodrow Wilson Awards Español: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson reciben Woodrow Wilson Awards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And they are doing this in plain sight. When a billionaire like Sheldon Adelson, CEO of the Las Vegas Sands corporation, can keep dropping $10M at a time into super pacs whose sole goal is political  (to make sure Obama has only one term), the situation has moved from dire to outrageous. Adelson, along with his wife Miriam, are super Israel supporters, to the point that they deny Palestinians are entitled to be treated as a people. This is one of the men trying to buy the election.

The Koch brothers are trying to do the same thing. David and Charles Koch control Koch Industries, the second largest privately controlled company in the United States. They are incredibly wealthy, yet want more.

What, do you think, are Sheldon, David, and Charles looking for? My bet is an astounding reduction in business regulations, a sweet tax structure that let’s them get even more rich than they are, and control of the presidency. No one–no one–gives millions and millions of dollars to a presidential campaign without expecting something in return. They want access to the Oval Office. I am sure Sheldon wants to manipulate Mitt Romney [I don't have time in this post to talk about what a straw man this guy is.] into being even more of a defender of Israel. (I’ll leave to another post just how absurd the basis for the Jewish state is.) And David and Charles want even less interference from the US government as they go on their merry way expanding their oil business.

That’s why it’s time for the Republican party and conservatism to be banished to the wilderness again! It happened after the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. It should be happening again, now. The GOP has passed the tipping point, demonstrating time and again it is not concerned with the middle class or the poor. (See my post “Mitch McConnell Boxed In.”) Jobs should be the goal of our legislators, yet we see Republicans in the House pushing endless legislation on abortion (31 bills in the last 2 years.) And no bill on jobs. Won’t even consider the president’s jobs bill.

They must be defeated, so soundly that they slink away in fear. Listen to their talk. Everything they accuse Obama of, they are doing.

This government should not be run by the Adelsons of this world and the Koch brothers. That is not what America is, or what it should be.

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June 22, 2012 · 4:19 pm

Dog Days of Summer Starting Earlier?

John Roberts - Caricature

John Roberts – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

Here it is, June 22, and the days are starting to get shorter again. The heat is up in the east, and it’s settling in nicely in the west for its long summer run. Normally, things slow down come August, but it appears the dog days are starting earlier this year, especially for us bloggers.

Look at politics. Chief Justice John Roberts has signaled, by actually saying nothing, that the SCOTUS will probably go into overtime on finalizing its opinion on the Health Care law. If it’s another 5-4 decision split exactly according to the politics of the appointing president (i.e.: the 5 votes belong to justices appointed by Republican presidents, etc.), then summer could start heating up pretty quickly. It might be that an issue that affects all of us, and which almost half of us oppose (the bill in general) but less than 40% support it, being decided by a single vote could truly put many noses out of joint. It would be to the country’s advantage if the justices were able to decide 6-3 or 7-2. But as of today it’s all quiet on the Potomac.

Mitt Robme is said to be softening his views on immigration. That is, he’s willing to consider granting green cards to immigrants who serve in the military. That’s sweet, but it is like Caligula deciding to spare a Christian in the Coliseum because the emperor felt he’d do well in the Pretorian guard. Robme’s thinking simply excludes any immigrants who won’t serve. So the Republican grand plan to deal with the 11 million Hispanics in the country without documents is to allow those who can join the military to become citizens.

Mittster

Mittster (Photo credit: DoubleSpeak Media)

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a step, but even smaller than a baby step. Yes, it’s true that, based on the Social Security Administrations analysis of the age groups of undocumented immigrants, most are below thirty. So the question becomes, just how many of those young people can and will enlist? And that’s where we left the Mittster, trying to score points with Hispanics by softening his originally razor-sharp opposition to those people he assumed would “self-deport” when they couldn’t get jobs here.

The Roman Catholic Church is quiet today, too. No more scandals about child abuse have been reported, no chants of Catholic-bashing, and no Vatican tongue-lashings for nuns are evident. We must thank God for that. I’m sure She’s taking a breather, too.

For a blogger, this is slim pickings. There’s no really juicy story to respond to or to explain. Maybe it’s good that it comes at the end of the work week, when I can recharge my batteries with two days off.

Let’s hope for more scandal and false pieties next week!

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June 21, 2012 · 3:24 pm

Over the Top, Again

English: Congressman Darrell Issa's Official 1...

English: Congressman Darrell Issa’s Official 111th Congressional Photograph (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday, a House of Representatives oversight committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (California) votes straight party line to charge Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt of Congress. Why, you ask? Because he failed to turn over some documents related to the committee’s ‘investigation  of what the New York Times called “a botched gunrunning sting operation known as “Fast and Furious.” Or, because he failed to turn these documents because he legally couldn’t. And now the president has invoked executive privilege to prevent the AG from having to go to court.

Congressman Issa has been gunning for the administration ever since he took office. He has been looking for anything he could characterize a misstep or an outright failure to do something that, in Issa’s mind, was against Issa’s philosophy. But he ran the committee like a kangaroom court. This program began under the Bush administration, yet Issa failed to call any Bush people to testify, even though members of his own committee requested that he do so.
There is a sense of a feeding frenzy going on here. “Fast and Furious” proposed to allow marked guns to be sold across the border in Mexico, with the idea that the Feds could then arrest the bad guys. It was a bait program, but many of the guns got lost. But why are the Republicans’ linens in a lump over this? Rachel Maddow explained last night that the basis for the Republicans’ twisted bloomers is the prospect of the loss of the Second Amendment!

The Rachel Maddow Show (TV series)

The Rachel Maddow Show (TV series) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know, I know, however did that thought creep in? Well, it involves a blogger, Michael Vanderboegh, who blogged on the day that the Healthcare bill was passed that conservatives should demonstrate their displeasure with this socialist measure by breaking  the windows in Democratic party office. Sure enough, that happened, but Vanderboegh was never even questioned by law enforcement. He has continued to pontificate about the evils of the Obama administration, but has moved on to promulgating a new conspiracy theory about President Obama “taking away your guns.” How is Obama doing this, you ask? According to Maddow,

“[T]he theory here is the Obama administration [is] being super lax in gun control as a conspiracy in order to be super tough on gun control. What? [...]“

Yes, you heard it right. The way Obama is going to take away “our guns” is to say nothing and do nothing about gun control, so that when he is elected for a second term, he will dispense with the Second Amendment. Vanderboegh has been spreading this fairy tale on–where else–Fox News, where the reporters are hungry for such bullpucky. But he also shared his theory with Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA), who bought it completely. That’s what brought us to the shameful actions of the House oversight committee today. If you’d like a fuller picture, see the Rachel Maddow segment on “Madness of the Higher Order” at http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/.

The twisting and turning and writhing that this issue brings out in conservatives is in keeping with their view that their world is threatened (See my post, Heaven’s Gate Redux) but also suggests something else. Under all the pomposity and posturing, they know that their stance on guns is unsupportable. No one can seriously say that a president has lulled us to sleep in his first term by doing nothing to impose gun control because that’s what he’s going to do in his second term. But that’s what Wayne LaPierre, current president of the National Rifle Associate, posited at a conservative conference. Doesn’t that remind you of Captain Queeg on the witness stand in the Caine Mutiny? “It all started with the strawberries.” There is a manic madness manifesting itself in conservative politicians and public figures that augurs poorly for our country’s reputation in the world. When half the country wants to continue doing the nation’s business like we’ve done in the past and the other half is having a meltdown in full view, who is to say that nation has a future at all?

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June 20, 2012 · 4:18 pm

Heaven’s Gate Redux

A few days ago, David Brooks, a moderate Republican columnist I generally respect for his balanced writing, had an op-ed piece in the New York Times ostensibly replying to the recurring Democrat’s question, “Why are Republicans so extreme?”  His answer:

English: David Brooks

English: David Brooks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But many Republicans have now come to the conclusion that the welfare-state model is in its death throes. Yuval Levin expressed the sentiment perfectly in a definitive essay for The Weekly Standard called “Our Age of Anxiety”:

“We have a sense that the economic order we knew in the second half of the 20th century may not be coming back at all — that we have entered a new era for which we have not been well prepared. … We are, rather, on the cusp of the fiscal and institutional collapse of our welfare state, which threatens not only the future of government finances but also the future of American capitalism.”

English: Brochure of the Peoples_Temple portra...

English: Brochure of the Peoples_Temple portraying cult leader Jim Jones as the loving father of the “Rainbow Family”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So Republicans are seeing the end of the world, eh? Well, maybe the end of the world as they knew it, or liked it, but it is certainly not the end of the world for the rest of us. There’s a great similarity to the way the Republicans are acting  and believing to the cults who committed mass suicides in the past. In those insane groups, like the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, and Heaven’s Gate in Rancho Santa Fe, California, people believed the unbelievable. In the Peoples Temple, Jim Jones convinced over 900 people that they were to drink poisoned Kool-ade to commit “an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.” And they bought it, along with the farm.

In the Heaven’s Gate cult, members were taught that, by committing suicide, they were shedding their “human vessel” and would be picked up by a spaceship following the comet Hale-Bopp, which was visible in the sky above California in early 1997. Some cult members went so far as to have themselves castrated, so they could be prepared for a sexless eternity.

Comet Hale-Bopp. Author shot this image at Zab...

Comet Hale-Bopp. Author shot this image at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley in April 1997. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I tell you there is not much difference between those suicidal lunatics and the crazed fanatics that have taken the Republican party hostage. The Tea Party members and conservative whack jobs who are now in Congress would seem to like nothing better than to take this government down. They have given up any pretense at governing, and they have so emasculated the political system that we live under that it may never recover its cojones.

And they are convinced that the end is in sight, that the Rapture this time will only take good, Christian conservatives to a place where there will be no blacks, Hispanics, gays, and any kind of independent women. I certainly can see Senator Mitch McConnell leading the herd right over the cliff, absolutely certain that the spaceship is waiting at the bottom. It might be good if the Republican party did commit a political mass suicide, so we could hope for the the birth of a new party that might seriously want to consider working with the Democrats to govern the country in the best interest of its people.

As for David Brooks, I’m afraid he’s waiting for that spaceship, too.

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