WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL INTIMIDATION

One reporter's story about how Bush keeps his people in line. From the Washington Post courtesy of This Modern World:

Consider that the escorts weren't there to provide security; all of us had already been through two checkpoints and one metal detector. They weren't there to keep me away from, Heaven forbid, a Democrat or a protester; those folks were kept safely behind rings of fences and concrete barriers. Nor were the escorts there to admonish me for asking a rude question of the partying faithful, or to protect the paying customers from the prying media.

Their real purpose only occurred to me after I had gone home for the night, when I remembered a brief conversation with a woman I was interviewing. During the middle of our otherwise innocuous encounter, she suddenly noticed the presence of my minder. She stopped for a moment, glanced past me, then resumed talking.

No, the minders weren't there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, might be noted. But maybe someday they'll be monitoring something more important than an inaugural ball, and the source could be you.

Click here for the rest.

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DISPELLING SOCIAL SECURITY LIES

Yet another Paul Krugman essay. From the New York Times courtesy of Eschaton:

Schemes for Social Security privatization, like the one described in the 2004 Economic Report of the President, invariably assume that investing in stocks will yield a high annual rate of return, 6.5 or 7 percent after inflation, for at least the next 75 years. Without that assumption, these schemes can't deliver on their promises. Yet a rate of return that high is mathematically impossible unless the economy grows much faster than anyone is now expecting.

And

Which brings us to the privatizers' Catch-22.

They can rescue their happy vision for stock returns by claiming that the Social Security actuaries are vastly underestimating future economic growth. But in that case, we don't need to worry about Social Security's future: if the economy grows fast enough to generate a rate of return that makes privatization work, it will also yield a bonanza of payroll tax revenue that will keep the current system sound for generations to come.

Alternatively, privatizers can unhappily admit that future stock returns will be much lower than they have been claiming. But without those high returns, the arithmetic of their schemes collapses.

It really is that stark: any growth projection that would permit the stock returns the privatizers need to make their schemes work would put Social Security solidly in the black.

Click here for the rest.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF CORPORATE "PERSONHOOD"

A BuzzFlash interview via WorkingForChange:

History tells us that when corporate power is unrestrained, and corporations grow so large that the largest among them come to control and then stifle the marketplace, the result is the corruption of democracy followed by economic collapse. We saw it in the serial tax-cuts and deregulation of the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations, which led directly to the Great Depression. And we're seeing it writ large today, with the same consequences. Democracy is under assault and America is becoming impoverished.

The breakup of AT&T was the last significant enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, pushed back in the late 1970s. The result was an explosion of innovation as both the research division of AT&T and the "Baby Bells" became relatively autonomous. It paved the way for competition in the industry, dramatically lowered prices for consumers, and, interestingly, over a relatively short period of time actually increased shareholder value for former AT&T stockholders.

There are only a handful -- probably fewer than five hundred -- corporations that abuse or assert corporate personhood in the United States. Yet the harm they do to our economy and our republic is enormous. If they were denied personhood, we could root corruption out of government, get corporations out of politics, and make America safe and hospitable for entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized businesses again, leading to an explosion in economic activity. And both the stockholders and the employees of these mega-corporations would benefit -- along with the rest of us -- if they were broken back down in size to where they were before the merger mania that Reagan allowed.

Click here for the rest.

Longtime Real Art readers know that I strongly believe that this sense of corporate "citizenship" is what's turned our fragile democracy into a plutocracy: corporate cash rules America now; voting is nearly useless when all the major candidates have vetted by the corporate powers in what some call a wealth primary--lobbying and campaign contributions are absolutely out of hand, which totally subverts democracy at the policy and implementation level. Both Democrats and Republicans are at the mercy of the corporate overlords. That's why I'm Green now; their bylaws prohibit taking any corporate money, and their overall mission is to return political power to average people.

Read this interview. It does quite a good job of showing how we got into this fine mess.

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Guest Blogger Miles

Abortion rights expected to be reduced

NEW YORK - The abortion bill most likely to become federal law this year would affect a relatively small number of pregnant teens, yet its impact on them could be dramatic — sharply reducing the options for girls in many states who dread telling their parents of their plight.

Supporters and opponents each offer vivid worst-case scenarios in debating the bill, which was included this week in the Senate Republicans' priority list. It would outlaw transporting a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion in order to evade parental consent or notification laws in the girl's home state.

The bill's advocates evoke the image of a girl being impregnated by an abusive older man who then drives her to an out-of-state abortion clinic so the girl's parents and the authorities won't find out about a relationship that might have been illegal because of age differences.

Opponents of the bill say it would criminalize the well-meaning acts of an aunt, older sister or other confidante who assist a girl terrified of being beaten or evicted from home if her parents learned of the pregnancy.

Every pro-choice American who voted for Bush because "at least they know where he stands" can pat themselves on the back.

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Revisiting the Porn Debate

From AlterNet:

It is typical that liberal-minded people, when facing censorship, would rush to defend pornographers' right to produce whatever they want, even if the products objectify, humiliate and violate women. But shouldn't we ponder what we are defending and what kind of value system supports that defense?

One of the most popular booths at the expo was for the BangBus, which consistently drew large crowds of almost entirely male fans. What's the BangBus concept? One of the producers explained that the videos show men in a large van, picking up what appear to be women on the streets, talking them into having sex, and then degrading them in some way – dropping them off in desolate places, not giving them money promised, or throwing their belongings out the door.

BangBus was hardly the most shocking, cruel or brutal pornography being offered on the exhibition floor in Las Vegas. Much of it can't be described for a general audience. There are few boundaries that haven't been pushed, as pornographers race to the shocking, ridiculous and humiliating, connecting visceral reactions to sexual pleasure. As an Asian woman, I found the racist stereotypes used in certain genres of pornography particularly oppressive.

Pornography encourages people to disregard others' pain for one's own pleasure. Many people I interviewed acknowledged that, based on their own experience and knowledge of the human body, certain sex acts they've watched in films likely would have been painful for the female performers. However, they argued that since the performers were paid, it was not the viewers' concern, and they acknowledged that they get aroused watching it. That mentality helps create a world in which a producer can brag about having originated a popular video series that shows women gagging during forceful oral sex

Click here for the rest.

Okay, I love pornography and pretty much always have. However, some years after getting my RTF degree, it became clear to me that if I was going to rail away against the way that advertising promotes the morally bankrupt philosophy of consumerism, if I was going to trash the mindless violence, macho stereotypes, and blatant sexism of Hollywood movies, I also had to use the same sort of analysis on my beloved porn.

What I came up with was disturbing. Porn, as an industry, really does present a wildly distorted picture of sexuality and women. Because porn is business, big business in fact, it generally aims at the lowest common denominator, just as mainstream television and film do. Consequently, we see the basest portrayals of gender: men are almost always the agressors, always in charge; women are submissive and willing.

This would not be such a big deal if it were only a few isolated instances. However, these gender roles are evident in almost all consumer pornography, and, as I'm sure you realize, porn has become amazingly pervasive due to the internet. Couple that with the continual devolution of sex education in the public schools which makes porn a de facto form of education for millions of children and teens, and suddenly it becomes clear: porn isn't just about harmless fantasy; it is now a major cultural influence, for better or worse.

Personally, I envision a kind of pornography that is respectful to both men and women, but the business doesn't seem to be interested in that. Understand, my problem with porn is not with portraying sex and sexuality in images. Rather, porn, as an industry, is highly exploitative and influences our culture in negative ways, all so a bunch of sleazy capitalists can get all the more wealthy. Ultimately, I see no difference between capitalist pornographers and capitalist oil men. Both industries are trying to profit at the expense of everyone else, and they simply don't give a shit about it.

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Chomsky

A nice little interview/bio piece on Noam Chomsky that gives a good overview of where he's at these days on Iraq and the "war on terrorism." From the London Independent via ZNet:

Still, he says, he is amazed at how the invasion of Iraq has turned out in what he believes "should have been one of the easier military occupations in history". He says: "I thought the war itself would be over in two days and that the occupation would immediately succeed. It was known to be the weakest country in the region. The US never would have invaded otherwise. The sanctions had killed hundreds of thousands and compelled the people to rely on Saddam for survival, otherwise they probably would have overthrown him.

"The country is obviously going to fall apart as soon as you push it. And any resistance is going to have no outside support, a trickle but nothing significant. But, in fact, it is proving harder than the German occupation of Europe in the Second World War. The Nazis didn't have this much trouble in Europe. But somehow the US has managed to turn it into an unbelievable catastrophe. And it is partly because of the way they are treating people. They have been treating people in such a way that engenders resistance and hatred and fear."

The long-awaited Iraqi elections are to be held next Sunday but Chomsky calls talk about a sovereign, independent, democratic Iraq a "poor joke". He says: "I don't see any possibility of Britain and the US allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that's almost inconceivable. It will have a Shia majority.

Click here for the rest.

The thing I like most about Chomsky is his ability to see a spade for what it actually is. He's declared again and again that there is no real intellectual connection between his linguistics work and his political work, but it seems that the majority of his political analyis deals with looking at the official line and then illustrating how words and deeds simply do not match. In other words, his non-linguistics writing looks at language and meaning where it counts most, in the political realm, where millions of lives are affected every day. In this case, the US is calling this theatrical event in Iraq an election. Indeed, votes will be cast and leaders will be appointed: however, this "election" will no doubt be less fair than the electoral travesty in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election. That is, it's not an election at all. It is simply an event designed to give legitimacy to American control of Iraq.

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Iraq's Non-Election

From CounterPunch courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

Predictably, the U.S. news media are full of discussion and debate about this weekend's election in Iraq. Unfortunately, virtually all the commentary misses a simple point: There will be no "election" on Jan. 30 in Iraq, if that term is meant to suggest an even remotely democratic process.

Many Iraqis casting votes will be understandably grateful for the opportunity. But the conditions under which those votes will be cast -- as well as the larger context -- bear more similarity to a slowly unfolding hostage tragedy than an exercise in democracy. We refer not to the hostages taken by various armed factions in Iraq, but the way in which U.S. policymakers are holding the entire Iraqi population hostage to U.S. designs for domination of the region.

This is an election that U.S. policymakers were forced to accept and now hope can entrench their power, not displace it. They seek not an election that will lead to a U.S. withdrawal, but one that will bolster their ability to make a case for staying indefinitely.

Click here for the rest.

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Little Black Lies

Princeton economist Paul Krugman continues to clear up the White House's conscious confusion mongering on Social Security privatization. From the New York Times courtesy of This Modern World:

First, Mr. Bush's remarks on African-Americans perpetuate a crude misunderstanding about what life expectancy means. It's true that the current life expectancy for black males at birth is only 68.8 years - but that doesn't mean that a black man who has worked all his life can expect to die after collecting only a few years' worth of Social Security benefits. Blacks' low life expectancy is largely due to high death rates in childhood and young adulthood. African-American men who make it to age 65 can expect to live, and collect benefits, for an additional 14.6 years - not that far short of the 16.6-year figure for white men.

Second, the formula determining Social Security benefits is progressive: it provides more benefits, as a percentage of earnings, to low-income workers than to high-income workers. Since African-Americans are paid much less, on average, than whites, this works to their advantage.

Finally, Social Security isn't just a retirement program; it's also a disability insurance program. And blacks are much more likely than whites to receive disability benefits.

Put it all together, and the deal African-Americans get from Social Security turns out, according to various calculations, to be either about the same as that for whites or somewhat better. Hispanics, by the way, clearly do better than either.

Click here for the rest.

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MORE ON THE OUTING OF SPONGEBOB

First off, it appears that this entire comedy was born of a misunderstanding. From AlterNet:

As it turns out, the whackos who originally led the attack on the We Are Family Foundation had logged onto the wrong web site in their search for ammunition. Rather than boot up the Foundation's site, www.wearefamilyfoundation.org, they'd mistakenly gone to the home page of the similarly named We Are Family organization (www.waf.org), which is, indeed, a gay and lesbian resource site. But instead of fessing up to messing up – especially now that the media was running with (and laughing at) the story – the resourceful Christians doubled back onto the Foundation's site, found the tolerance pledge, and had the smoking sponge they needed.

So the fundamentalists really thought they had something. When it turned out that they didn't, they went after what they could, the notion of tolerance itself:

Quicker than you can say, I can't believe they're going after a cartoon sponge, Dobson's cronies in the holier-than-thou contingent weighed in on the underwater turbulence.

"Tolerance" and "diversity" are part of a "coded language that is regularly used by the homosexual community," said a spokesman from the reliably over-caffeinated Family Research Council; while Donald Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association and reigning Chicken Little of moral depravity, warned parents everywhere to be on the lookout for the sinful video making its way into their kids' classrooms.

Click here for the rest.

During the summer of 1985, I went to a Southern Baptist youth camp up in the mountains near Glorieta, New Mexico. I was surprised by one of the memes that the adults were circulating around the camp. The anti-starvation charity song "We Are the World" was still on the charts. I had already become bored with it (except for, maybe, the Ray Charles verse), because the radio was playing it constantly and MTV had the video in heavy rotation. But the grandiose pop symphony really seemed to light the passions of our counselors at camp.

They hated it, which is understandable, but not because the song was kind of sucky. No, these guys had weird theological problems with the lyrics. They objected first and foremost to the notion that "we are the world." They quoted a few New Testament verses to the effect that Christians are somehow distinct among humanity; "be in the world, but not of it," says the Bible. "We are not the world," they told me repeatedly. To a lesser degree they had a problem with the line "we're saving our own lives," because, of course, only Jesus can save.

Screwy, right? Not to them, and the proponents of these ideas did a pretty good job of pulling lots of teenagers over to their side. Fortunately (I guess), I was unconvinced. Even though I was still a believer at the time, their reasoning on this seemed absurd: clearly, they had taken the lyrics wildly out of context, applying a strange sort of Biblical interpretation to these bland, near-meaningless, feel-good words. It was for me an omen of my future disgust with fundamentalism's lunacy.

The moral to this tale is that fundamentalists seem to be incapable of supporting any charitable effort that hasn't been generated by them. The problem is their unwillingness to join with any organization or institution that doesn't embrace fundamentalist philosophy as its core value--tolerance is okay, as long as it's a Christian tolerance. Consequently, SpongeBob is gay, and "diversity" means promoting homosexuality. For fundamentalists, it's clearly their way or the highway.

Of course, bashing tolerance is rhetorically quite a dangerous thing, as this post from David Neiwert over at Orcinus shows.

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RADICAL HISTORIAN HOWARD ZINN
Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home

From ZNet:

It is a strange logic to declare, as so many in Washington do, that it was wrong for us to invade Iraq but right for us to remain. A recent New York Times editorial sums up the situation accurately: "Some 21 months after the American invasion, United States military forces remain essentially alone in battling what seems to be a growing insurgency, with no clear prospect of decisive success any time in the foreseeable future."

And then, in an extraordinary non sequitur: "Given the lack of other countries willing to put up their hands as volunteers, the only answer seems to be more American troops, and not just through the spring, as currently planned. . . . Forces need to be expanded through stepped-up recruitment."

Here is the flawed logic: We are alone in the world in this invasion. The insurgency is growing. There is no visible prospect of success. Therefore, let's send more troops? The definition of fanaticism is that when you discover that you are going in the wrong direction, you redouble your speed.

Click here for the rest.

But then, it is important to observe that when one looks up that definition of fanaticism in the dictionary, one will also find a picture of the United States. That is, it seems that since 9/11 the US ruling elite and their apologists have been fanatical. This whole thing has been spurred on by flawed logic from the get-go. Saddam had no WMDs, and this was known before the invasion. Saddam had no connections with Al-Qaeda, and this, too, was known before the invasion. No Iraqis were involved in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, which was also known before the war. Public debate and discussion about the war, before during and after, have been disingenuous at best, focusing on some details but never the big picture. I'm still amazed at how crazy the whole thing's been.

Zinn is absolutely right, of course. This is pure insanity, and the only rational course is to get out, right now. As usual, however, I'm not very hopeful.

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Deadliest Day in Iraq Yet part II

Miles, below, didn't link to any article about the 37 US soldiers killed in Iraq earlier today so I figured I'd post one myself. From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

A U.S. helicopter crashed in a desert sandstorm in the early morning darkness today, killing the 30 Marines and one Navy sailor aboard. Six other troops died in insurgent ambushes in the deadliest day for Americans since the Iraq war began nearly two years ago.

Only days before Iraq's crucial elections Sunday, militants set off at least eight car bombings that killed 13 people and injured 40 others, including 11 Americans. The guerrillas also carried out a string of attacks nationwide against schools that will serve as polling centers.

In Washington, President Bush called on Iraqis to defy terrorism and go to the polls despite relentless insurgent attacks. He said it was a "very discouraging" day when the U.S. death toll for the war rose above 1,400.

Click here for the rest.

I'm sure that when our fearless leader says "very discouraging," he doesn't actually mean that he's getting discouraged. Stay the course and all that. There are absolutely no signs of an imminent US pullout despite the ever increasing gore over there.

If you follow the above link and read the story, it starts talking about the overall general level of violence in Iraq: there are car bombs and suicide bombers all over the place. As longtime British Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk has observed, it's already over; the US just hasn't admitted it yet. The longer the White House waits to admit the obvious, however, the more people will die.

How can such criminals be our leaders?

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Guest Blogger Miles

Condoleezza Rice sworn in

WASHINGTON - Condoleezza Rice won easy confirmation Wednesday to be President Bush's new secretary of state, despite strong dissent from a small group of Democrats who said she shares blame for mistakes and war deaths in Iraq.

The Senate voted 85 to 13 to confirm Rice, who succeeds Colin Powell as America's top diplomat and becomes the first black woman to hold the job.

The Senate vote showed some of the partisanship that delayed Rice's confirmation vote by several days. Twelve Democrats and independent James Jeffords of Vermont voted against Rice. The Democrats included some of the Senate's best-known members such as Massachusetts Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, who was the party's presidential candidate in last year's election. Thirty Democrats voted for her.

Shame on every Democrat who didn't speak up and chose to vote for her. Rice has what I call "Alan Keyes" syndrome. She allows herself to be manipulated by hardline conservatives because she knows the value of her ethnicity and gender in terms of P.R. I don't care who she is; she knowingly lied, and continues to lie, which has cost thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.

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Guest Blogger Miles

Democrats call Condoleezza Rice a liar, Bush apologist

WASHINGTON — One Senate Democrat called Condoleezza Rice a liar Tuesday and others said she was an apologist for Bush administration failures in Iraq, but she remained on track for confirmation as secretary of state.

Rice, who has been President Bush's White House national security adviser for four years, was one of the loudest voices urging war, Democrats said. She repeatedly deceived members of Congress and Americans at large about justifications for the war, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.

"I don't like impugning anyone's integrity, but I really don't like being lied to," Dayton said. "Repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."

Rice is expected to win confirmation on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that Rice would have "an overwhelming majority" of votes.

If nothing else, it's at least consolation for Ron for voting Democratic. I've read over transcripts of Senate debates, and I've seen terms like "fabrication" and "misleading". To flatly call Rice a "liar" on the Senate floor is a great step toward change and a faint pulse from the Democratic party.

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Guest Blogger Miles

Deadliest Day in Iraq Yet (and it's 3 p.m.)

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Thirty Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed in a helicopter crash near Iraq's border with Jordan, bringing the number of U.S. troops killed Wednesday to 37 -- the deadliest day for U.S. forces since the start of the war in Iraq.

Four U.S. Marines were killed during combat in Iraq's Anbar province, and two U.S. soldiers were killed in attacks in the Baghdad area, according to the U.S. military.

The cause of the chopper crash is still under investigation, although it appears to be weather-related, according to Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command.

Certainly not a good day, but a typical one. Hopefully it really was weather-related, as the general stated, and not caused by insurgents.

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HOUSE OF CARDS ECONOMICS
Dollar at mercy of central banks

From the London Financial Times courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

In 2003, the most recent year with full international statistics, central banks financed 83 per cent of the US current account deficit, with Asian central banks accounting for 86 per cent of flows.

A similar picture is emerging for 2004. Despite a good start to the year, when the private sector was a large net purchaser of dollar assets, central banks came to the rescue again. The People's Bank of China has let it be known that China increased dollar reserves by $207bn (€159bn) in 2004, financing nearly a third of the US current account deficit, estimated at $650bn.

Self-interest has supported much of this flow of cash. The US has lapped up cheap finance to fund its unquenchable appetite to spend. Asian governments have until now been keen to oblige, in order to keep their currencies from appreciating. But all investors have their limits and they may start worrying about their degree of exposure.

If new official flows to the US were to be curtailed, the dollar would plunge, creating a huge hole in the accounts of central banks holding dollars.

And

Until recently there had been little evidence to back up these fears but this has begun to change.

Click here for more.

The US dollar has value only becaue it is perceived as representing a strong American economy and financially sound US government. It appears as though that perception is (rightly) about to change for the worse. The conventional wisdom is that cheaper dollars equal more US exports--a less expensive dollar makes American goods less expensive relative to other currencies, and therefore more appealing to buyers in overseas markets. The catch here is that for the last twenty years, multi-national corporations have been madly outsourcing US manufacturing to other countries! We don't really export that much any more. So there is no benefit at all to a cheaper dollar; there's only downside: inflation the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1970s, worse perhaps.

Okay, maybe there's one benefit. Wal-Mart as we know it will cease to exist.

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Billboards tout a Christian alternative to homosexuality

From the Houston Chronicle:

The advertisements, which depict either a smiling man or woman, bear the message, "I questioned homosexuality. Change is Possible. Discover how."

The billboards are in promotion of the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family's "Love Won Out" conference scheduled for Feb. 19.

"The conference is meant to help people understand what causes homosexuality and how to prevent it," said B. Joe Cline, a Galveston resident who organized advertising effort that uses 15 billboards.

And

Cline said he got involved with ministry for homosexuals, because his son, who is now heterosexual, once was gay.

"People who are in homosexuality are there because of a disconnect or a gender identification that has not matured," said Cline, 73, a recently retired financial planner and 28-year Galveston resident.

Click here for the rest.

Wow. A fundamentalist scientific breakthrough. Who whould have thought that?

Of course, that's heavy sarcasm. The truth is that medical doctors and psychologists really have no idea what makes gay people gay, or straight people straight, for that matter, which makes it particularly frustrating to hear such psycho-babble coming out of the mouths of people who couldn't possibly know what they're talking about. Increasing the consternation are the studies showing that these gay to straight conversions don't usually take too well. In other words, as Frank Zappa once sang, "you are what you is." It's clear that this ad campaign is much more about ideology than anything else. That, and playing with people's heads.

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TWO FROM EMPHASIS ADDED

Rob Salkowitz has popped out another couple of thought provoking essays recently, and I'm too busy with my studies to do any thought provoking of my own (I've got to re-read Uncle Vanya tonight--I get to play the title character for some scene work in class, which is pretty darned cool), so I'm channelling Emphasis Added here at Real Art this evening.

First off, Rob takes a few pot shots at Bush's "Ownership Society" nonsense, as I did a couple of days ago, but from a somewhat less macroeconomic point of view:

The On-your-Ownership Society

Why would anyone want to work for someone else when they could get these great advantages by being self-employed? Because it’s cold out here, that’s why.

No one pays for my health care, no one guarantees my salary every month. If I don’t get work on my own, I don’t get paid. If I don’t collect from recalcitrant clients, I don’t get paid. If someone decides to screw me over because I’m small and powerless, I don’t get paid. Fortunately, I’m fairly good at what I do and this hasn’t been a problem lately, but in the early part of my career (and still, for many smart and well-qualified colleagues), being the master and commander of one’s own craft more often resembles sailing on the crest of a tsunami than being the cruise director of the Love Boat.

And

It’s a fact of human nature that, if fed a steady stream of Horatio Alger stories about hard work and entrepreneurship, most people will eventually look in the mirror and see the next Donald Trump. It’s also a fact of human nature – and a fortunate one – that there’s only one Donald Trump and precious few like him. Like roulette, freedom and ownership in the capitalist sense produce a few big winners and lots and lots of frustrated losers.

In the business world, this is tolerable since it has many other benefits for economic growth and innovation. Business also has mechanisms for spreading risk and replacing unproductive parts. At the individual level, people don’t have that option. If you make a bad economic decision, you can’t take a “one-time charge against earnings” and absorb a stock-price hit. If age, disease or circumstance reduce your ability to compete in the workforce, you can’t outsource the unprofitable unit.

Click here for the more on why it's a bad idea for everybody to try to be a capitalist.

This next essay isn't really extending on anything I've posted here recently, but it's good reading that chills me to the bone if I think about it too much:

Vergiss Nicht

…is the inscription posted on the gates to Dachau, the former Nazi concentration camp (now historical site) outside of Munich. It means “Never Forget,” and since the world today is commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it’s a good time to remember a few things about the Holocaust and the circumstances that brought it about.

And

Because the majority of the Nazis’ victims were Jews, it is natural to view Nazism as fundamentally anti-Semitic. This is true, of course, but it also confuses the issue. Unlike, say, the Russian Cossacks or the perpetrators of anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, the Nazis’ problem with Jews was not primarily religious. It was partly racist, based on now-discredited theories of eugenics and biological explanations for cultural differences between human populations. Hitler clearly thought he was “purifying the herd” and pulling out the weeds so flowers could grow. But, critically, Hitler’s hatred of Jews was also specifically ideological.

And what was it he didn’t like? Hitler, the Austrian immigrant who became a zealous German patriot and acutely felt the humiliation of Germany’s defeat in World War I, rooted himself in nationalism. The aggrandizement of the German state and the German volk was the center of his political program. Nothing gets nationalists more pissed off than cosmopolitans – those educated, mostly urban elites who perceive greater commonality with others similarly situated elsewhere in the world than they do with the people and traditions of their own country.

Following World War I, cosmopolitanism was all the rage in Germany, and it was, often for good reason, intimately associated with avant gard art, left-wing politics, and transgressive sexual behavior. Then as now, this enraged conservatives, who saw the ideas and traditions at the root of their social and economic power threatened by “corrupt and decadent” tendencies emanating from the cities. Then as now, a disproportionate number of the writers, political agitators, “outrageous” entertainers, policy wonks and know-it-alls were Jews: assimilated Jews who felt comfortable enough in German society to flamboyantly step over lines held sacred by the God-fearing folks out in the hinterlands.

Click here for the rest.

Does any of this seem familiar? I won't be coy: conservatives in 21st century America are toying with Pandora's box. Fanning the fires of hyper-patriotism while blaming liberal cultured urbanites for national weakness is exactly what the Nazis were doing in order to solidify their political power in 1930s Germany. So, too, with American conservatives today. People believe our country could never go the way of Nazi Germany, but Germans then were human beings just like we are, no better, no worse. Things might not end up that way here. But, then, they might.

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SOCIAL SECURITY LIES
AND CONTRADICTIONS

Two from WorkingForChange:

Another fake crisis from Bush's minions

At a staged event to promote his privatization scheme, Mr. Bush recently said that Social Security is going "bankrupt." Yet the government's own projections indicate that the Social Security Trust Fund can pay full benefits until sometime between 2042 and 2052, or roughly half a century from now. Why does he claim to be so worried about a minor financial problem that won't arise for decades, if ever, while he remains unfazed by the threat of global warming?

Permitting private accounts won't resolve those potential funding shortfalls in any case, according to the federal government's own analysts, including the U.S. Comptroller General. The only realistic solution, according to the Wehner memo, is to change the method used to calculate benefits -- and cutting them sharply. Why then would Mr. Bush insist on borrowing $2 trillion or more to finance privatization, thus creating additional debt for the young people whose future checks will also be slashed?

According to Mr. Bush, Social Security will someday break the national budget with unsupportable demands unless his proposals are enacted. Last year, however, he triumphantly signed a Medicare prescription drug plan that -- by the government's own reckoning -- will cost trillions of dollars more than Social Security. Why does he consider that election-year spending program prudent?

Click here for the rest.

The Free Lunch Bunch

If people are rightly skeptical about claims that Social Security faces an imminent crisis, just wait until they start looking closely at the supposed solution.

President Bush is like a financial adviser who tells you that at the rate you're going, you won't be able to afford retirement - but that you shouldn't do anything mundane like trying to save more. Instead, you should take out a huge loan, put the money in a mutual fund run by his friends (with management fees to be determined later) and place your faith in capital gains.

That, once you cut through all the fine phrases about an "ownership society," is how the Bush privatization plan works. Payroll taxes would be diverted into private accounts, forcing the government to borrow to replace the lost revenue. The government would make up for this borrowing by reducing future benefits; yet workers would supposedly end up better off, in spite of reduced benefits, through the returns on their accounts.

The whole scheme ignores the most basic principle of economics: there is no free lunch.

Click here for the rest.

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"Corporate Americans"

From AlterNet:

The Ownership Society represents a new form of distinctly right-wing economic populism. It turns the notion on its head; while liberals offer a populism that promises underserved groups that "We will stand with you against the heartless and powerful," the central theme of the Ownership Society is that we're all big capitalists just waiting to blossom — even the lowliest among us. If only we could get the yoke of taxes, asbestos litigation and regulations off our backs we would all be in a position to worry about losing a piece of our multi-million dollar estate to the "death tax." Forget about a semblance of economic justice, it's about giving you, the individual, the tools you need to beat your neighbor. And if you can't beat him, he'll beat you. It's a populism born in the Hobbesian belief that we all struggle alone in a world where life is nasty, brutish and short.

Click here for the rest.

Just in case you haven't heard, "The Ownership Society" is the umbrella moniker for Bush's collection of economic shivs-through-the-ribs disguised as reform. The basic underlying philosophy, if you want to call something so retarded a "philosophy," is that everybody can be successful as a capitalist, everybody can acheive the "American Dream" if they only decide to play the game. What's amazing is that a lot of people actually buy into this crap: the great irony of "The Ownership Society" is that capitalism absolutely depends on enormous segments of the population not succeeding as businessmen. Without a vast pool of cheap labor, millions and millions of people who are desperate enough to rent themselves out on a daily basis as literal wage slaves, capitalism crashes and burns. "The Ownership Society" stands in absolute contradiction to the most rudimentary principles of "free market" economics; it simply cannot exist in the "free market" economy that Bush loves so greatly. Therefore, he's lying, and he knows it. In reality, "The Ownership Society" is a ruse intended to ram Draconian, 19th century styled social Darwinism down the throats of Joe Sixpack and Soccer Mom. Average Americans who believe this lie thinking that their lot in life is going to improve are sadly deluded. "The Ownership Society" is about owning a whole lot less.

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honey baked ham

My old pal Bronze Johnson has returned to blogging:

well after a long hiatus, i am back. bolder. brighter. and dressed in leather.

let me tell you up front though, i am not a robot. although i almost became one. the reason that i was away in the first place was because these delinquent nuns on sabbatical decided that they would live on the edge for a few weeks, and kidnapped me and took me to their mountain hideaway. i can't mention everything that happened to me there (a girl's gotta have her secrets) but let me just tell you this: it wasn't as bad as you might think.

well, everything was going swimmingly, me and the nuns, and before we all knew it, weeks had turned into months. i realized that i forgot to tell my mother where i was going, and knowing how she felt about nuns, i started to panic.

Click here for the rambling rest.

Bronze and I went to high school togther. We also kind of went to college together in that we were both living in Austin when I was at UT, late 80s through mid 90s. In fact, Bronze has been a part of my life on and off for close to a couple of decades now. It's quite cool that he's sharing over the internet his madcap adventures and observations that have amused me for so many years. He's really not as weird as he sounds. Actually, he is as weird as he sounds. I think coming from Kingwood made him that way. Of course, those of you who know me also know that I, too, am from Kingwood. So, what's that say about me? I'm not sure, but, man, I just looove that Bronze Johnson!

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RELIGIOUS LUNATIC ROUNDUP

It's oh so appropriate that as I sit here typing this, Frank Zappa's "Dumb All Over" is streaming out through my computer's speakers courtesy of the "Zappa Radio" feature on his website. While I'm not nearly as anti-religious as Zappa was, stories like the ones below seem to continually push me in that direction. On the one hand, I can understand a principled stance on, say, abstinence, or even the power of prayer--I disagree with those points of view, but I can see why some people find them to be reasonable. On the other hand, however, I've really gotten to be quite perplexed by the absolute absurdity that so many Americans seem to be gravitating toward these days.

Read on.

Church plans burial of fetuses from abortion clinic

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The Roman Catholic church plans to bury the ashes of up to 1,000 aborted fetuses Sunday to mark the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, prompting scathing criticism from family planning groups.

Boulder Abortion Clinic director Dr. Warren Hern, who had no idea the mortuary working with his clinic had been sending ashes to Sacred Heart of Mary Church, said the decision was "a cynical exploitation of private grief for political purposes."

And

Kate Horle, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said most of Hern's patients have fetuses with fatal anomalies. His clinic specializes in "late abortion for fetal disorders," according to its Web site.

"These women are devastated," Horle said. "To discover that an entity is essentially taking it upon themselves to create a religious service that may not be acceptable to the family is probably really painful."

Click here.

I wonder if the same church is also planning to bury the thousands of unused embryos discarded by fertility clinics every year. Probably not.

Video with SpongeBob alarms Christian group

From Reuters via the Houston Chronicle:

Christian Conservative groups have issued a gay alert warning over a children's video starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon favorites.

The wacky square yellow SpongeBob is one of the stars of a music video due to be sent to 61,000 U.S. schools in March. The makers -- the nonprofit We Are Family Foundation -- say the video is designed to encourage tolerance and diversity.

But at least two Christian activist groups say the innocent cartoon characters are being exploited to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.

"A short step beneath the surface reveals that one of the differences being celebrated is homosexuality," wrote Ed Vitagliano in an article for the American Family Association.

Click here for the rest.

Yes, that's right: SpongeBob joins Barney, Ernie, and Tinki Winki, his children's TV brethren, in embracing "the love that dare not speak its name." To be honest, gayness makes all these characters much more interesting, but that's just my opinion. I also like to think that Davey and Goliath are gay, too. I'm pretty certain that Rod and Tod Flanders are also pretty swishy, for that matter.

Newspaper shouldn't print Liberal voices

A letter to the editor of California's Ridgecrest Independent, courtesy of Eschaton:

I can't believe the vicious slander of some people who have the nerve to portray or suggest Jesus behaved as a Liberal.

Jesus makes his position very clear. The wisdom of an "eye for an eye" would never occur to a Liberal.

Liberals are always talking about peace at any price, when Jesus said: Do not think I have come to bring peace, but a sword.

Click here to read the rest--it's quite a hoot.

So much for the "prince of peace." What would Jesus do? Why, Jesus would KICK SOME ASS!!! That's the kind of Lord we worship. An ass-kickin' Lord: our God is an awsome God!

Lunacy. All lunacy. I know for a fact there are some rational Christians out there; why do the morons get all the press? Dumb all over, indeed:

It says in the book:
"Burn 'n destroy . . .
'N repent, 'n redeem
'N revenge, 'n deploy
'N rumble thee forth
To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side
'Cause they don't go for what's in the book
'N that makes 'em BAD
So verily we must choppeth them up
And stompeth them down
Or rent a nice French bomb
To poof them out of existence
While leaving their real estate just where we need it
To use again
For temples in which to praise
OUR GOD

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World fears new Bush era

From the London Guardian courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.

Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.

The survey also indicated for the first time that dislike of Mr Bush is translating into a dislike of Americans in general.

And

"Our research makes very clear that the re-election of President Bush has further isolated America from the world," he said. "It also supports the view of some Americans that unless his administration changes its approach to world affairs in its second term, it will continue to erode America's good name, and hence its ability to effectively influence world affairs."

Click here for the rest.

Fortunately, I've not yet had to deal with angry foreigners. However, if such a thing ever happens, I'll know who to blame. This is really no joking matter. As the dollar erodes and US economic influence becomes a thing of the past, what will be left is diplomatic influence and military intervention. I think that our current adventure in Iraq makes clear that armed intervention can only get a nation so far before the money and men start to run out. That leaves us with diplomacy only. By then, however, Bush will have left office, and somebody else will be left holding the bag. One wonders what the next President, Republican or Democrat, will be able to do in order to repair the damage.

Putting Bush in prison would be a good start...

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Will Bush Quit Iraq?

From CounterPunch courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

After nearly two years eight US divisions can barely guard their own internal lines of communication or the road to Baghdad airport. There's talk of organizing death squads on the old Salvadoran model run by the CIA, but it's way too late for that option.

The casualty list swells with each day that passes; over 10,000 dead and maimed American troops.The torture scandals have been as devastating to America's international reputation as was the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. No one expects the situation to improve militarily and the prospect of civil war in Iraq looms. The war is politically unpopular here, as local newspapers and tv news stations carry weekly news of local boys killed or maimed.

And

If somehow the White House can claim that Iraq has now been led towards the "democratic" path then decorous retreat is conceivable. If the resistance makes further strides, if the Shia turn on the US, then retreat will be inevitable, with the only other option to the US being a draft here and a US force four times its present size. The war would become the all-consuming theme of Bush's second term.

It would be rational for the United States to start withdrawal in a month or two. But we are not dealing with rationality.

Click here for the rest.

I, for one, am already pretty much of the opinion that withdrawal is inevitable, and by that, I don't mean that we'll be pulling out because we've finally liberated the Iraqis. No. We'll be pulling out because the US cannot win this one. So, at this point, the only real question is not if, but rather, when the withdrawal begins: people are dying--billions of dollars that should be used for the rebuilding of Iraq and the poor here in America are being pissed away on a pointless pursuit. This is, indeed, quite irrational.

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TWO FROM ZNET

First, an essay from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting on the fallout from "Rathergate:"

Selective punishment shows media's true bias

The hours of coverage of the Rather episode managed to ignore what should have been the central question: Did George W. Bush, in reality, properly fulfill his National Guard requirements? On September 14, FAIR noted that CBS was only one of several media outlets to release important reports about documented discrepancies in Bush's service record. Because of the focus on the CBS documents and the accompanying right-wing accusations of media bias on the issue, those stories-- and the important questions they raised-- were quickly dropped by a cowed press corps.

The claims that this controversy proves that CBS, or the media as a whole, have a liberal or anti-Bush bias, are ludicrous. When CBS staffers got caught taking shortcuts on a story critical of Bush, it cost them their careers. By contrast, other reporters have received much less scrutiny and punishment for offenses of far greater magnitude-- and with much more significant consequences to society.

And

The lesson of "Memogate," then, is that journalists may be punished for bad reporting-- if they have offended the wrong people. If they have merely helped steer the country into war under false pretenses, their careers can continue unimpeded.

Click here for the rest.

Next, an essay from a life long conservative on how political philosophy has been ruined by fundamentalists and neo-cons:

The End of Conservatives

The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."

This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.

And

The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands, there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof. Thus, preemptive war, which permits the President to invade other countries based on unverified assertions.

There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.

Click here for the rest.

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NEW BACKWARD TAPE MASKING EXPOSED
britney spears wants to have sex with you

Ah! "Backward tape masking!" Boy, that phrase sure brings back memories. Back when I was in high school during the early and mid 1980s, it seemed like an endless number of travelling evangelists were making a killing touring the Bible Belt and preaching against the evils they had supposedly found embedded in famous rock songs. But "what is 'backward tape masking?'" you may ask.

From Wikipedia:

A backward message (otherwise, but incorrectly, known as Backmasking) is a supposed message hidden in an audio recording that is revealed by playing it backwards. Thus it requires audio equipment with this facility, either built-in, or in the case of a gramophone record, by turning it backward by hand.

Critics of rock and roll songs have occasionally claimed that rock musicians have recorded backward messages about sex, drugs, death, and blasphemy into their songs, in order to disseminate a message to dedicated fans that might not otherwise be transmittable. It is further occasionally claimed that these messages can be perceived subconsciously, simply by listening to the audio played normally. From this speculation, it is further suggested that audio can contain subliminal commands that incite their listeners to commit acts of violence, or simply drive them to irrational behavior. The general population (especially among fans of rock-and-roll music) usually scoffs at the idea that hidden commands are recorded in rock music, and this idea has become an urban legend.

However

It is worth noting that, given a randomly generated series of syllables spoken in a variety of accents, a two-syllable pair that can be liberally interpreted as "Satan" is very easy to generate. Therefore, any individual with a small amount of creative interpretation skills could play virtually any song with vocals backwards and uncover "Satanic messages". This fact has been exploited by defense attorneys in "backwards messaging" court cases, who often disprove allegations by "uncovering Satanic messages" in songs by Christian artists, most famously Amy Grant.

Click here for more.

In other words, backward tape masking is, by and large, a bunch of bullshit. I remember one particular anti-rock evangelist who spoke to our Southern Baptist youth group back in the day really had his sideshow routine down to a T. He told us that he was going to play Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" backward, but he first wanted us to know what we were looking for, so he wrote down the Satanic backward lyrics for us to peruse on a chalk board. He spoke them aloud and told us to listen carefully, then he played the tape. "Did you catch that?" he asked. "Here, I'll play it again." And so it went a few more times. After the third time or so, several of my youth group buddies were convinced that the gibberish we heard was, in fact, a resoundingly clear ode to Satan.

Obviously, the anti-rock evangelist had managed to fool my fellow teenagers by leading them to a pretty absurd conclusion--presenting the Satanic message before playing the tape essentially prejudiced most of the group toward believing his outrageous assertion. To this day, "Stairway to Heaven" played backward sounds to me like a bunch of nonsense syllables.

Listen for yourself (click on "Stairway to Heaven" at the top of the page).

Anyway, having said all that, I must admit that I'm quite impressed with this latest backward lyric scandal. This sample is much more clear than the above mentioned Led Zeppelin example. It may very well be the real thing. But how did she pull it off? I mean, it's Britney Spears, for god's sake! It's not like she's Roger Waters or John Lennon or anything coming even close to a pop music intellectual. What's going on?

From BadMouth:

The combination of baby-toned voice, little-girl innocence and fetish-inducing Catholic schoolgirl outfits was guaranteed to make her a huge star among middle-aged Japanese businessmen--but suprisingly it made her a star among horny tone-deaf men in America, as well.

But the bigger suprise was that prepubecent girls found a new, talent-free role model to emulate. The popularity of low-rise jeans, low-cut tops and low-quality pop music can all be traced back to Spears--as well as any number of eating disorders.

But when asked about her pubescent sexuality, Britney's message was always straightforward: no sex until marraige. But what was the queen of the prick-tease really saying to her fans? You're about to find out.

Let's listen to a three-second clip from her first hit, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" two different ways.

Apparently, the lyric "...with you I lose my mind, give me a si-" when played backward becomes "...sleep with me I'm not too young." It sounds pretty real to me.

Listen for yourself.

Weird, huh? God, I hope it doesn't subconsciously force me to change my behavior somehow. I'm already feeling an urge to bare my midriff.

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Annals of Outrage

Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel's "list of the Bush Administration's Ten Most Outrageous Scandals thus far uncovered by government investigators:"

1. Halliburton's Corruption...
2. Iraq's Decline...
3. Abu Ghraib Prison Torture...
4. The CIA's Pre-9/11 Intelligence Failures...
5. HHS's Deceptive Ad Campaign...
6. HHS's Scully Scandal...
7. Government-wide Accounting Problems...
8. Sex Education Misinformation...
9. CAPPS II's Failures...
10. The Real Costs of War...

Click here to have this list explained.

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WMD Hunt Ends; Bush's Spin Goes On

From the Nation:

And then McClellan doled out the usual 9/11 boilerplate: "Remember, September 11th changed the equation about how we confront the threats that we face, and the president recognizes what his most important responsibility is, and that is to do everything in his power to protect the American people. And nothing has changed in terms of his views when it comes to Iraq, what he has previously stated and what you have previously heard. The president knows that by advancing freedom in a dangerous region, we are making the world a safer place."

But if Hussein had no WMDs, how much of a threat was he? Bush and McClellan--for obvious reasons--refuse to concede Bush hyped the threat to win popular support for the war. If Bush had argued before the war only that the United States needed to invade and occupy Iraq in order to promote freedom in the region because that would protect Americans at home, wouldn't the prewar debate have taken on a much different tone? And the war would have been a much tougher sell for Bush and his crew.

Click here for the rest.

I often wonder why so many Americans just don't seem to understand what's going on with this: Bush lied about Iraq's WMDs to get the US into an illegal quagmire of a war; therefore, he's a criminal of the highest order, a war criminal, even. My best guess is that Americans didn't really understand what was going on in the first place. Secular totalitarian Muslims, radical Islamo-fascists, Sunni, Shiite, Al-Qaeda, Taliban...it's all the same. Us and them, our team versus their team, however, is something that Americans have drilled into them from the earliest ages. In the end, it seems to me, most Americans see war as some kind of global football game. Like the Oklahoma Sooner and Texas Aggie fans of the 1980s, it doesn't matter if our team broke the law; what matters is getting a National Championship, by any means necessary.

Of course, in this game, people die, and it will probably be some years before most Americans realize exactly what it is they've been supporting. It's pretty frustrating that headline after headline proclaims that Iraq had no WMDs and it's all greeted with a collective yawn.

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BUSH'S REAL MOTIVATION FOR
SOCIAL SECURITY "REFORM"

From Democracy Now:

Well, it would mean trillions of dollars in terms of management fees that would erode small accounts that would be set up under this plan. So, yes, Wall Street has a motivation, but I think that really, it's broader than that. The Bush administration and the people around them really are out on an ideological mission to dismantle affirmative government. And therefore, they know that if they can get away with dismantling the Social Security system, the very, very popular retirement social insurance system that Americans have supported for decades, if they can dismantle that and privatize it as part of their “ownership society,” the slogan of which ought to be: “You're on your own, buddy,” that means that they can get away with practically anything. They can dismantle regulation. They can really go about the -- their whole agenda of dismantling government. It's an ideological fixation with them, and it's going to be an epic test with the very wealthy corporate America and Bush supporters on one side, and on the other side, the organizations that represent the American people. Labor, women's organizations, retiree groups around the country, AARP has just gotten into this battle.

Click here to hear, watch, or read the rest.

Vice President Cheney reportedly said a few years ago that Republican attempts to open up Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling really aren't about the oil--indeed, it is well understood that the region really doesn't have enough oil to make a major impact on overall US consumption. Instead, Cheney asserted that the whole thing is about making it okay to drill in environmentally sensitive areas, about setting a precedent and rolling back decades of environmental progress. So, too, with Social Security reform: if they can kill this biggest of liberal prizes, they can kill anything.

In reality, Republicans couldn't give less of a shit about your retirement money.

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MLK DAY

A couple of links on the profound and lasting relevance of Dr. King. First from the National Radio Project's weekly show, Making Contact, a half hour report from a couple of years ago (right before the Iraq invasion) on King's anti-war attitudes:

"Beyond the Dream: MLK and the Anti-War Movement"

On April 4, 1967 ­ one year to the day before his assassination ­ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made a major address on the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in New York. It was the first time King would tell the world why he opposed the war, saying that his "conscience [left him] no other choice." We rarely hear about King’s "Beyond Vietnam" speech in the mass media, and glossy retrospectives on network television often fast forward from his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, to the Voting Rights Act victory of 1965, to the image of King dead on the balcony of a Memphis motel in 1968. What about King’s call for the United States to get on "the right side of the world revolution?" Or, his denunciation of what he called the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism?

On this special edition of Making Contact, we take a look at Martin Luther King’s stance against the Vietnam war and its relevance today.

Click here to download the show.

Next, from the AP via the Houston Chronicle, a quick one from MLK's widow:

Coretta King revives message

"It's as if he were writing for this period," King said in a rare public appearance on what would have been her husband's 76th birthday. "Nonviolence would work today, it would work 2,000 years from now, it would work 5,000 years from now.

"If Martin's philosophy had been lived out in Iraq, we wouldn't have bin Laden."

Ain't that the truth. Click here for the rest. And click here and here for Real Art MLK Days gone by.

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WAL-MART'S PR CAMPAIGN TO APPEAR LESS SUCKY

From the Houston Chronicle:

Wal-Mart is responding to negative reports over such issues as employment practices, attempts by civic groups to keep the retailer out of their communities and a reputation for driving out small businesses.

Richard Costello, president of marketing consulting firm MagicEcho and former brand guru at General Electric, said Wal-Mart's image campaign is a smart idea.

"They're learning from the John Kerry experience," he said. "A challenge unanswered is going to kill you. They've been getting enormous negative publicity. This can do nothing but help them."

He added that he is surprised the company didn't act sooner.

Wal-Mart is wise to focus on employment issues when defending itself, because it is something that consumers can relate to, he said.

Such a campaign carries the downside that the media will rehash all the criticism, but Costello said, "They have the marketing muscle to drown out the noise."

Click here for the rest.

Longtime Real Art readers know that I'm very much of the opinion that Wal-Mart sucks. (A quick Google search of my site provided this incomplete list of Real Art references to the sucky mega-chain store.) My rantings and ravings, however, are as but a few tiny drops when compared to the massive storm of criticism directed at the evil retailer. While the power of professional PR is quite formidable and intimidating, this story can only be read as a sign that Wal-Mart is nervous, meaning the anti-Wal-Mart campaign is having an impact. That's good news, relatively speaking.

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KRUGMAN ON PRIVATIZING SOCIAL SECURITY
This British horror story is a must-read for us all

From the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle:

Pardon my Britishism, but Britain's 20-year experience with privatization is a cautionary tale Americans should know about.

The U.S. news media have provided readers and viewers with little information about how privatization has worked in other countries. Now my colleagues have even fewer excuses: There's an illuminating article on the British experience in The American Prospect, www.prospect.org, by Norma Cohen, a senior corporate reporter at The Financial Times who covers pension issues.

Her verdict is summed up in her title: "A Bloody Mess." Strong words, but her conclusions match those expressed more discreetly in a recent report by Britain's Pensions Commission, which warns that at least 75 percent of those with private investment accounts will not have enough savings to provide "adequate pensions."

Click here for the rest.

Remember this:

1. There is no Social Security "crisis." It's been made up by the Republicans who are waging a long term battle to dismantle the New Deal, that is, America as we've known it all our lives.

2. Any repairs that are actually needed by Social Security can be easily accomplished within the existing system well before there are any actual problems (which best estimates predict will start sometime between 2042 and 2051).

3. Private retirement accounts will make things for the vast majority of retirees worse, not better; the only group who stands to benefit from such "reform" is the banking and finance industry, which strongly supports these changes.

4. This whole thing seems disturbingly similar to the bogus rhetoric about WMDs thrown around by the Bush administration during the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

It's all very simple, really. If the Democrats screw this one up, we'll KNOW FOR SURE that they suck. Of course, I'm already sure, myself.

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THE TOXIC EAST SIDE
Air, cancer risk linked
in some Houston areas

From the Houston Chronicle:

People living in some east Harris County neighborhoods, the East End and parts of Texas City are at greater risk of contracting cancer because of toxic chemicals released by the region's industrial plants, according to a state analysis of 2003 air quality data.

State air pollution monitors in Texas City, Galena Park, Houston's East End, Deer Park, Channelview and at the Lynchburg Ferry detected levels of three hazardous chemicals that, if inhaled during a lifetime, would likely generate 29 to 199 additional cases of cancer in a million people. Under normal circumstances, there is a risk of one additional case of cancer developing in a population of 1,000,000.

"These polluters don't own the air. They have no right to endanger the lives of citizens downwind," said Houston Mayor Bill White on Wednesday. "We need tougher regulations and need them enforced."

Click here for the rest.

Man, oh, man. I lived in that area for six years. I'm glad I got out: the report says that the risk factor only comes into play over the course of an entire lifetime, so I guess I'm off the hook. Or am I? I know that, on the whole, air pollution levels throughout the country are actually higher than they are believed to be because the Environmental Protection Agency, understaffed and underfunded by our environmentally conscious Republican White House, is unable to adequately test the vast majority of polluting industries. Consequently, the EPA relies on industry to self-report and you can bet your booty that industry is doing everything it can, short of actually reducing toxic emissions, to keep those numbers down.

When I was teaching in Baytown, also in east Harris County, it always seemed to me that my students reported an unusually high number of friends, family members, and acquaintances, who either were born with some sort of bizarre defect, contracted an unusual cancer, or suffered from asthma. Of course, personal experience is not statistical data, and I didn't want to think of myself working in a toxic chemical stew pot, so I just tried to assume it was my imagination. I'm beginning to think I was right: Houston's east side may very well be much worse than even this report indicates.

And it will probably get worse despite local efforts to clean up the air. After all, the President is a pimp for the oil industry.

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U.S. FUNDAMENTALIST SCHEME FOILED
Tsunami Orphans Won't Be Sent to Christian Home

From the Washington Post courtesy of First Draft:

The group's plan to raise children from Muslim families in a Christian home struck a nerve in Indonesia, which had regulations in place even before the tsunami requiring orphans to be raised by people of their own religion. This rule was adopted in large part to ensure that Muslim children were not converted.

In response to fears that Acehnese tsunami orphans would be trafficked, the Indonesian Department of Social Affairs adopted a further prohibition on people taking children out of the province. Officials said the only exemptions were for relatives.

Despite these restrictions, radical Muslim activists in Indonesia have warned against the operations of some Christian relief groups, arguing that their ultimate motive is to convert the Acehnese away from Islam, which has long been a part of the province's cultural identity. Though most Indonesians do not share the radicals' extreme agenda, these concerns have resonated among many in the country, who remain suspicious of foreigners and particularly Westerners.

And

Before WorldHelp changed its Web site, it contained an appeal for funds that described the Aceh people as "strict Sunni Muslims" who "have been very instrumental in spreading Islam throughout Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia." Normally, it said, "Banda Aceh is closed to foreigners and closed to the gospel. But, because of this catastrophe, our partners there are earning the right to be heard and providing entrance for the gospel." The fundraising appeal went on to say that WorldHelp was working with Christian partners in Indonesia who want to "plant Christian principles as early as possible" in the 300 Muslim children.

"These children are homeless, destitute, traumatized, orphaned, with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. If we can place them in a Christian children's home, their faith in Christ could become the foothold to reach the Aceh people," it said.

Click here for the rest.

So what that means is that the Indonesian Islamic radicals are absolutely correct when they charge that this fundamentalist missionary group's offer to help comes with strings attached. It's one thing to try to convert a teenager or an adult to Christianity. It is entirely another, however, to take helpless children from another culture into a Western indoctrination program disguised as charity. What really drives me nuts about things like this is that these WorldHelp bozos no doubt see themselves as archetypal victims of anti-Christian persecution. They just don't get it. Imperialistic indoctrination? It's all good.

You know, the same thing has been going on in Iraq since the invasion. The Evangelicals are over there like carpetbaggers during the Reconstruction.

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TWO FROM ZNET

First, good guy investigative journalist Greg Palast throws in his two cents worth on "Rathergate:"

CBS' Cowardice And Conflicts Behind Purge

CBS said, "The Panel found that Mapes ignored information that cast doubt on the story she had set out to report -- that President Bush had received special treatment 30 years ago, getting to the [Texas Air National] Guard ahead of many other applicants …."

Well, excuse me, but that story is stone cold solid, irrefutable, backed-up, sourced, proven to a fare-thee-well. I know, because I'm one of the reporters who broke that story … way back in 1999, for the Guardian papers of Britain. No one has challenged the Guardian report, or my follow-up for BBC Television, whatsoever, though we've begged the White House for a response from our self-proclaimed "war president."

CBS did not "break" this Chicken-Hawk George story; it's just that Dan Rather, with Mapes' encouragement, found his journalistic soul and the cojones, finally, after 5 years delay, to report it…

Mapes and Rather did make a mistake, citing a memo which could not be authenticated. But let's get serious folks: this "Killian" memo had not a darn thing to do with the story-in-chief -- the President's using his daddy's connections to duck out of Vietnam. The Killian memo was a goofy little addition to the story (not included in my Guardian or BBC reports).

Click here for the rest.

Next, Charles Demers, editor of Canada's online progressive magazine Seven Oaks, on the "Salvador Option:"

From El Salvador To Iraq: Death Squads Come In Waves

What’s that? You’re not familiar with the ‘Salvador Option’? Well, remember in the 1980s, when all those fiery, irrationally passionate Latinos and their wacky hippy allies advanced the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the CIA was orchestrating bands of marauding assassins and torturers in El Salvador against the left-wing FMLN guerrillas, as well as Catholic clergy and innocent civilians? Well – and we don’t really need to dwell on this– essentially, every accusation they made was true, and we’re tacitly admitting it now, only because we’re hoping to do the exact same thing (except openly this time) in Iraq. So while you thought the question to ask new Bush appointees like Gonzales was ‘Do you condone torture’, it turns out that the more germane question might be ‘Do you condone mutilating nuns’ genitalia and leaving bishops dead in ditches?’ And the answer you’ll get, at this point, is: We’ll let you know. Also, according to Newsweek, “The interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is said to be among the most forthright proponents of the Salvador option.” Thank God that the tyrant Hussein is in U.S. custody, so that dedicated democrats like Allawi can set themselves to the difficult task of building a free and thriving political expression for Iraqi civil society.

Click here for the rest.

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WMD search in Iraq is over, White House says

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush cited as justification for going to war, the White House said today.

Democrats said Bush owes the country an explanation of why he was so wrong.

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons and the administration does not hold out hopes that any weapons will be found.

And

Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

"Nothing's changed in terms of his views when it comes to Iraq, what he has previously stated and what you have previously heard," McClellan said. "The president knows that by advancing freedom in a dangerous region we are making the world a safer place."

Bush has appointed a panel to investigate why the intelligence about Iraq's weapons was wrong.

McClellan said the Iraq experience would not make Bush hesitant to raise alarms when he deems it necessary.

Click here for the rest.

That last statement makes it clear that Bush is completely willing to do the whole thing over again if he wants to. Sigh.

I've talked about this so many times, I'm almost sick of it, so I'll be very brief. The US did not invade in order to "liberate" the Iraqis: the US invaded because of the imminent threat posed by supposed weapons of mass destruction that Saddam might have given to Al-Qaeda terrorists. It was understood at the time that Saddam had no connections with bin Laden's organization. It was understood at the time that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Now it is completely clear to everybody who believed Bush's lies that they were hoodwinked--that is, it's clear if they pull their heads out of the sand.

Hundreds of thousands are now dead because the President lied. He was not "mistaken;" he lied. Bush belongs in prison. Period.

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An Assault on the New Deal

From the Progressive:

Among the pillars the New Deal rested on were Social Security and the right to organize. The Bush Administration is busy trying to knock both down.

President Bush has been vocal about his agenda to radically revamp Social Security and is attempting to do this by prophesizing doom for FDR's crowning legislative achievement unless it is completely reworked. The Chicken Little alarmism is an ideologically driven ploy to dismantle a key government program. Plus, it will benefit Republican constituencies on Wall Street.

But the Bush Administration is also moving surreptitiously against the right to organize, which FDR enshrined in the Wagner Act.

Click here for the rest.

Needless to say, the ideal America according to our President looks much more like the 19th century than the 20th. Get ready for shanty-town, USA.

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TWO FROM ALTERNET

First, an brief essay on the Pentagon's new "Salvador Option:"

The Death Squad Option

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has held El Salvador up as a model for Iraq. And during the recent Vice Presidential debates, Vice President Dick Cheney stated, "Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had a guerilla insurgency that controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead. And we held free elections ... And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections." According to a 1993 U.N.-sponsored truth commission, however, up to "90 percent of the atrocities in the conflict "were committed by the U.S.-sponsored army and its surrogates, "with the rebels responsible for 5 percent and the remaining 5 percent undetermined." These death squads "abducted members of the civilian population and of rebel groups. They tortured their hostages, were responsible for their disappearance and usually executed them."

Click here for the rest.

Next, an insightful piece on the new, and some say infamous, "I had an abortion" tee shirts:

Full Frontal Offense

It's important to recognize the extent to which the attention of the pro-choice movement has shifted away from the bodies and lives of women who need abortions and toward those who aim to strip women of the right to control their reproductive lives. So it's not surprising that a large part of the movement is plagued by the notion that anti-choicers riled up by the sight of women proclaiming their abortions on their chests will want to step up their efforts to deny them this power. Given this fear, it would seem a smart strategy to keep quiet, stay under the radar, and hope that women will vote anti-choice legislators out of office. Such a focus, however, ignores the effect pro-choice speech, including the shirt, might have on a woman feeling isolated and ashamed because she had had an abortion or is considering it. A public sisterhood of those who have chosen abortion, for a variety of personal reasons, could do a lot to counteract the hateful rhetoric of the anti-choice movement.

Baumgardner's T-shirt is a lightning rod for the emotions that surround the abortion issue – especially among feminists – because it forces the current unspoken contradiction of the pro-choice movement into public speech. It's smart to recognize the current political climate, the fact that abortion providers have been targeted and killed and clinics bombed, and that women's health clinics operate under the awareness that their staff might be assaulted or murdered for doing their job. In the face of real violence and real political majorities, it might seem logical to lie low and safeguard the rights of women by creating an environment in which they can exercise their right to terminate a pregnancy without fearing for their lives. At the same time, some of the most powerful slogans from both the feminist and gay rights movements focus on the act of speaking up: "Your silence will not protect you." Keeping quiet might seem like a smart political tactic, but when women muzzle themselves because they are afraid, their silence can masquerade as the appearance of support for the anti-choice agenda.

Click here for the rest.

I, for one, fully agree. As the gay rights movement has proclaimed for some years now, "silence equals death." Either you're for it or you're against it. Squeamishness only plays into the hands of the anti-abortion crowd. Besides, I've got a real soft spot in my heart for the anarchist's bomb, and this shirt seems to do the trick. Metaphorically, I mean. Anyway, get your "I had an abortion" shirts here.



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Guest Blogger Miles

Bush appoints new Homeland Security chief

WASHINGTON — President Bush today chose federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff to be his new Homeland Security chief, turning to a former federal prosecutor who helped craft the early war on terror strategy.

"Mike has shown a deep commitment to the cause of justice and an unwavering determination to protect the American people," Bush said. "Mike has also been a key leader in the war on terror."

Chertoff headed the Justice Department's criminal division from 2001 to 2003, where he played a central role in the nation's legal response to the Sept. 11 attacks, before the president named him to appeals court position in New Jersey.

Chertoff would replace Tom Ridge, the department's first chief. "He leaves some very deep shoes to fill," Chertoff said of Ridge. "I will be proud to stand again with the men and women who form our front line against terror," he said.

Chertoff, a federal appellate court judge with the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, would replace Tom Ridge, the department's first chief.

Chertoff, who rounds out Bush's second-term Cabinet, is actually the president's second pick for the job. Former New York City police chief Bernard Kerik withdrew as nominee last month, citing immigration problems with a family housekeeper.


If this is the guy behind the "legal response" to the 9/11 attacks, it's no wonder Bush nicknames him and gives him a promotion. That "legal response" is still being felt by Arab Americans every time they're held for days and weeks without formal charges. A federal prosecutor who helped destroy our civil liberties... what a perfect nomination.

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PENTAGON MULLS DEATH SQUADS FOR IRAQ

From Newsweek courtesy of Eschaton:

‘The Salvador Option’

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.

And

One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the insurgency. "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."

Click here for the rest.

That last bit shows that, if implemented, "The Salvador Option" will in all probability be directed at civilians as much as at insurgents. In short, US sponsored terrorism. Creepy, huh?

This isn't surprising given the number of former Reagan era figures currently skulking about the White House, but it is pretty weird because, as far as I know, the US has still not admitted to any connection with the Salvadoran death squads of the 1980s. This Newsweek report comes pretty close to doing so. However, if anyone still has any doubts that our government would do such a thing, consider this 1990 essay from Covert Action Quarterly via Third World Traveller:

Death Squads in El Salvador:
A Pattern of U.S. Complicity

Now, there is compelling evidence to show that for over 30 years, members of the U.S. military and the CIA have helped organize, train, and fund death squad activity in El Salvador.

In the last eight years, six Salvadoran military deserters have publicly acknowledged their participation in the death squads. Their stories are notable because they not only confirm suspicions that the death squads are made up of members of the Salvadoran military, but also because each one implicates U.S. personnel in death squad activity.

The term "death squad" while appropriately vivid, can be misleading because it obscures their fundamental identity. Evidence shows that "death squads" are primarily military or paramilitary units carrying out political assassinations and intimidation as part of the Salvadoran government's counterinsurgency strategy. Civilian death squads do exist but have often been comprised of off-duty soldiers financed by wealthy Salvadoran businessmen.

It is important to point out that the use of death squads has been a strategy of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine. For example, the CIA's "Phoenix Program" was responsible for the "neutralization" of over 40,000 Vietnamese suspected of working with the National Liberation Front.

And

It is widely accepted, in the mainstream media and among human rights organizations, that the Salvadoran government is responsible for most of the 70,000 deaths which are the result of ten years of civil war. The debate, however, has dwelled on whether the death squads are strictly renegade military factions or a part of the larger apparatus. The evidence indicates that the death squads are simply components of the Salvadoran military. And that their activities are not only common knowledge to U.S. agencies, but that U.S. personnel have been integral in organizing these units and continue to support their daily functioning.

Click here for the rest.

Speaking of denials, the new US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, denies in the Newsweek story that he had anything to do with death squads when he was ambassador to nearby Honduras during the Reagan administration. However, it's pretty much an open secret that Negroponte has blood stained hands: this "Salvador Option" was predicted last spring when he was named to his current position.

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MORE ON CBS FIRINGS

Atrios over at Eschaton fires off an essay on what the "Rathergate" scandal means in terms of the so-called-liberal-media:

But, the worst Rather has been accused of by sensible people is letting partisanship cloud his judgment. Accepting that as true just for sake of argument, it's still a far less egregious sin than most of the Whitewater-era horseshit which has never been acknowledged as horseshit by the liberal media, even though unlike the Rather incident, much of that horseshit was clearly deliberately manufactured by the producers and reporters. These events were recycled and echoed throuhgout the entire liberal media, with no one calling foul and no one calling for their heads. Without making any statement about what the appropriate consequences for "Rathergate" should be, it's clear that the media attention by that liberal media and the actual consequences have been much greater than dozens of worse incidents involving clear deliberate deception by people in the media.

Dan Rather - evil biased liberal whose partisanship led him to jump the gun on a story? Believe that if you want, I don't really care. But, "Rathergate" proof of "liberal media?" Just the opposite.

Click here for more.

A tip of the hat to my sidekick Miles for posting on this story first.

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Guest Blogger Miles

CBS fires four executives over Bush Nat'l Guard Story

NEW YORK - Four CBS executives were fired today following the release of an independent investigation that said a "myopic zeal" led to a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story about President Bush's military service that relied on allegedly forged documents.

The network fired Mary Mapes, producer of the report; Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday" and his top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice president Betsy West.

Dan Rather, who narrated the report, announced in November that he was stepping down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," but insisted the timing had nothing to do with the investigation.

The independent investigators — former Republican Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press — said they could find no evidence to conclude the report was fueled by a political agenda.

The network's drive to be the first to break a story about Bush's National Guard service was a key reason it produced a story that was neither fair nor accurate and did not meet CBS News' internal standards, the investigators said.

Myopic zeal (my-op'ic zeal) n. - see also Investigative Journalism

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Guest Blogger Miles

Murdoch buys back Faux News

NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., moving to regain full control of its majority owned Fox television properties, is offering to buy the remaining publicly held shares of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. for stock valued at about $5.9 billion.

The exchange offer announced today would solidify Murdoch's control over the Fox assets which include the Fox broadcast network as well as Fox news and sports channels, the Twentieth Century Fox movie studio and a controlling interest in satellite television giant DirecTV.

News Corp., which recently moved its base to the United States from Australia, also owns newspaper, book publishing, television and satellite TV assets around the world.


I'm not even sure what the implications of this are, but I hear "Murdoch" and "buy media" and a little red light goes off in my head.

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GOD AND THE TSUNAMI

From the Houston Chronicle editorial page, an essay on God and tragedy from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

The simplest explanation is that of the 12th century sage, Moses Maimonides. Natural disasters, he said, have no explanation other than that God, by placing us in a physical world, set life within the parameters of the physical. Planets are formed, earthquakes occur, and sometimes innocents die.

To wish it were otherwise is in essence to wish that we were not physical beings at all. Then we would not know pleasure, desire, achievement, freedom, virtue, creativity, vulnerability and love. We would be angels — God's computers — programmed to sing his praise.

The religious question is, therefore, not "Why did this happen?" but "What then shall we do?" That is why, in synagogues, churches, mosques and temples, along with our prayers for the injured and the bereaved, we are asking people to donate money to assist the work of relief.

Click here for the rest.

I've been hearing about a couple of essays written by David Brooks, senior editor of the neo-con rag the Weekly Standard, about God's role in the tsunami and how removing Him from consideration robs the event of meaning. Earlier this evening, my wonderful wife Becky told me that today's AOL survey question was asking something to the effect about whether God caused the tsunami to happen. Enough is enough. God is not the divine puppet-master. The reality in which we live allows bad things to happen to good people and vice versa. We already know this to be true, and generally don't agonize over every minute detail of our lives in this way, although some do: "I found a fly in my soup; it must be God's will." I suppose that we endow the larger events of our lives with more cosmic significance, hence, all these questions about God's role in the tsunami. Such questions, however, make about as much sense as football players praying for a good game. Why must we assume that God has anything to do at all with any particular event in human life?

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IRAQ WAR HITS NEARBY
6 from Louisiana Guard
killed by roadside bomb

From the Houston Chronicle:

Six of the seven soldiers killed last week when a Bradley Fighting Vehicle was blasted by an unusually powerful roadside bomb in Iraq were from a Louisiana National Guard unit based in Houma, La., military officials said Saturday.

Officials said it was the largest single loss by a National Guard unit in the Iraq war.

The seventh victim of the Jan. 6 attack near Baghdad, which flipped the 30-ton Bradley, was from a New York-based unit but was not immediately identified, officials said. All the soldiers were attached to Fort Hood's 1st Cavalry Division.

Click here for the rest.

Houma is about a forty five minute drive from where I'm sitting right now. This is hardcore, and yet another reminder that the only thing coming out of this war is death and more death. As John Kerry once said during another pointless war, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

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Agency paid commentator to
push Bush education plan

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The Bush administration paid a prominent commentator to promote the No Child Left Behind schools law to fellow blacks and to give the education secretary media time, records show.

A company run by Armstrong Williams, the syndicated commentator, was paid $240,000 by the Education Department. The goal was to deliver positive messages about President Bush's education overhaul, using Williams' broad reach with minorities.

The deal, which drew a fast rebuke from Democrats on Capitol Hill, is the latest to put the department on the defensive for the way it has promoted Bush's signature domestic policy.

Click here for the rest.

I'm not sure what the legal issues involved here are, but it sure does look sleazy, and the left side of the blogosphere is just going nuts over it: the question being asked repeatedly about this is "who else is on the payroll?" Good question.

Although, one must admit, such sleazy journalistic payola scandals really do pale in comparison to something like, say, the entire Fox News organization. Know what I mean?

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FUNDAMENTALISTS ON THE WARPATH
Not your Grandma's religious right

From WorkingForChange:

"In your re-election, God has graciously granted America -- though she doesn't deserve it -- a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate... Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ... Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years -- a brief time only - - to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God... If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them."

-- post-election letter to President Bush, Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, Dr. James Dobson and Alabama's state representative Gerald Allen are on the warpath. The Rev. Falwell is promising to build his newly launched Moral Majority Coalition into an awesome electoral force to be reckoned with for decades to come. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, is warning Democratic Senators that if they block President Bush's judicial nominees their political careers will be toast. And Allen wants to turn gay-positive literature, currently located at state supported institutions, to toast.

While you might have thought that President Bush's victory in November would initiate a fundamentalist time-out for hosannas and celebrations, they're keeping their joy in check. Instead of dancing in the streets, Christian right political warriors are donning full battle gear and scoping out new terrain.

Click here for the inside dope on what the fundamentalist loons are up to.

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Delaware School Bans Anti-Bush Shirt

From the Progressive:

"I wore the shirt to school, and they told me to cover it up, and I just refused," he says. "The school counselor came to my homeroom and he took me to the principal's office, and I spent all first period arguing with the principal about whether the shirt was appropriate or not."

Truszkowski says the principal admitted to having a personal stake in the issue. "He said he was angry because he had a son and a nephew over there," Truszkowski says. "I said I respected them 100 percent, but I didn't respect the reason why they were over there."

According to Truszkowski, Principal McAllister said he was being disruptive and told him that "some of our rights stop right there when we walk through the school door."

McAllister also called Truszkowski a terrorist and taunted him by saying that he should wear a shirt that says, "I'm a terrorist," Truszkowski recalls.

"Why would I do that?" he says he asked the principal.

Click here for the rest.

No doubt the shirt was only disruptive to self-righteous teachers' and administrators' personal sense of right and wrong, not to the general learning environment. This is a clear violation of first amendment free speech rights as determined in the landmark US Supreme Court decision for the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case back in 1969:

A prohibition against expression of opinion, without any evidence that the rule is necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others, is not permissible under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Click here for the entire opinion.

Contrary to popular opinion, students' rights do not end when they enter the school building, but given that it's a huge hassle to have to litigate every time the schools violate those rights, which happens often, the de facto situation is that public schools amount to miniature totalitarian institutions. The "disruption" clause found in most public school dress codes is particularly infuriating: even though the Court mandates that evidence of disruption must be produced in order justify suppression of free speech rights, this is rarely done, and students generally allow schools to get away with it.

Even though the schools offer bland lip-service lectures in the classroom on the importance of free speech, the real and more compelling lessons come from students' day to day lives under the strong authority of teachers and administrators: only popular opinions may be freely advocated.

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American Fundamentalism

A stream of consciousness quickie from the blog of Noam Chomsky:

There are studies, often, asking people whether religious beliefs are “very important” to them, how often they attend religious services, etc. There are also interesting studies relating intensity of religious belief (by such measures) with economic development. It turns out that there is a very close correlation: the more developed the society, the lower the intensity of religious belief. The United States, alone in the studies I have seen, is completely off the chart, with far higher religious commitment than predicted by level of development.

Click here for the rest.

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Bush's Approval Rating Falls in AP Poll

From the AP via the Baton Rouge Advocate:

President Bush is entering his second term with the lowest approval ratings of any recent two-term president, even as he talks about an ambitious agenda of change, an Associated Press poll finds.

Congress is viewed even more negatively - a troubling sign for Bush and Congress as they tackle such proposals as creating private accounts for those in the Social Security system, overhauling the federal tax code and limiting lawsuit damages.

Bush's approval rating is at 49 percent in the AP poll with 49 percent disapproving among all of those polled. His job approval is in the high 40s or low 50s in several other recent polls - as low as any job approval rating for a re-elected president at the start of the second term in more than 50 years.

Click here for the rest.

There's your mandate right there. For some reason, Bush thinks these numbers are high enough to justify destroying one of the most successful and popular social programs in the history of the United States. What's amazing is that despite his low approval rating, the President will probably get away with it. If anything, the Republicans have taught us some lessons in the art of weilding power over the last decade or so. Now, are the Democrats willing to take these lessons to heart?

Probably not.

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A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
CNN dumps Tucker Carlson, 'Crossfire'

From the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle:

Klein said he wanted to move CNN away from what he called "head-butting debate shows," which have become the staple of much of all-news television in the prime-time hours, especially at the top-rated Fox News Channel.

"CNN is a different animal," Klein said. "We report the news. Fox talks about the news. They're very good at what they do and we're very good at what we do."

Klein specifically cited the criticism that the comedian Jon Stewart leveled at Crossfire when he was a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Stewart said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were "hurting America."

Klein said Wednesday night, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." Klein said he believed that especially after the terror attacks on 9/11, viewers are interested in information, not opinion.

Click here for the rest.

I'm sure this has much more to do with business than it does with a desire to serve the people of the United States: NPR reported earlier today that Crossfire lost 20% of its audience in 2004. Nonetheless, this is a step in the right direction. As Stewart pointed out in his Crossfire appearance last October, these debate shows are simply exercises in "partisan hackery," disserving democracy by muddying national discourse. Indeed, such programs force important issues into a false dichotomy of liberal and conservative, giving both sides equal weight, even when neither side is even close to discussing reality.

This move, by itself, won't save broadcast news as an institution, but it might slow down its rapid decay, which is a relatively good thing. NPR also reported that CNN is dropping Capitol Gang as well. Heh.

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General says Army Reserve may become 'broken force'

From the Los Angeles Times via the Houston Chronicle:

Lt. Gen. James Helmly criticized Pentagon decisions to extend reservists' tours in war zones, to give troops as little as three days' notice before mobilizations, and to call reservists back to active duty after they have served and returned to civilian life. Such policies have strained the Army Reserve to the point where the 200,000-strong force could be unable to carry out future missions, Helmly wrote to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker.

Click here for the rest.

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GOP WANTS TO DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY
"For the first time in six decades, the
Social Security battle is one we can win"

A leaked memo from the White House removes any doubt. From Talking Points Memo courtesy of Eschaton:

So now you can see from memos emerging from the White House itself that this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. If it were, what would that sentence mean -- ("For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win")? The first time in six decades they can save it?

Clearly, this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. It is a battle to end Social Security and replace with something that Wehner clearly understands is very different, indeed the antithesis of Social Security.

This entire debate is about ideology -- between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start.

Click here for the rest.

The Republicans simply cannot be trusted on this issue. Period. They have been lying from the get-go about Social Security: they say they're trying to save it, but it's absolutely clear at this point that they want to completely do away with it. Why? They simply believe that the government shouldn't be involved in the retirement business, not to mention the fact that they can shower their buddies in the investment business with loads of cash. Don't even listen to the GOP on this. They know they're lying. They know their arguments are full of shit. Engaging in any sort of dialogue with them is a losing proposition because they've rigged the debate.

For the full text of the smoking gun memo, click here.

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Ken Lay Would Love SS Privatization

From the Nation:

If you need more evidence that privatizing Social Security is a lousy idea, think back to the Enron scandal . Remember what we learned: Greedy Enron executives sold stock for millions while the company was still riding high and then gave themselves big bonuses as bankruptcy loomed. Meanwhile, they lied to employees and stockholders about the company's finances and then didn't allow workers to bail out of 401(k) retirement plans that held Enron stock. Thousands of people not only lost their jobs but their lifetime savings.

After Enron's collapse, the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history, you'd have to be pretty dense to fall for the Bush Administration's callous scheme to encourage workers to take risks with their pension and retirement benefits.

Bush and his cronies have worked hard to ignore the lessons of Enron--continuing to fight against serious regulation of corporate misbehaviour and abuses. Don't let them ignore Enron's lessons when it comes to replacing a successful government guaranteed program for a greed-ridden privatization scam.

Click here for more.

Two things to remember about this Social Security "debate:" first, there is no iminent crisis because Social Security is quite sound until 2042, and, even then, the system would not "collapse," and second, diverting money into private accounts is not only risky, but would also pay out less than retirees would get under the current system, even in 2042.

It's really all a big scam to help out Bush's rich contributors, or, as he says, "his base."

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Total of U.S. wounded in Iraq tops 10,000

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Of the 10,252 total wounded, the Pentagon said 5,396 were unable to return to duty and 4,856 sustained injuries that were light enough to allow them to resume their duties. The total is normally reported each week, but the Pentagon had not updated the figures since Dec. 22, when the number of wounded stood at 9,981.

The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq stood at 1,335 today, according to the Pentagon.

Click here for the rest.

Due to improved medevac ability and body armor, it's probably safe to say that the vast majority of the half that could not resume their duties in this war would have been dead in, say, the Vietnam War. This is not to lessen the sacrifice these soldiers have made--indeed, many of these people are now disabled or in pain for the rest of their lives. Rather, my point is that the relatively low number for US deaths in Iraq tends to obfuscate the true scale of carnage over there. Indeed, longtime British Middle East reporter Robert Fisk revealed in an interview on Democracy Now a couple of days ago that Iraq is in utter chaos right now, as if the assassination of Baghdad's mayor didn't make that utterly plain: all that's left to be done, says Fisk, is for the US to find a way out without losing face--he predicts eventual negotiations with the insurgents that will leave them in power. If US withdrawal is inevitable, shouldn't we just leave now, and spare some lives?

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Guest Blogger Miles

Bush pledges $10K of his "own" money

WASHINGTON - President Bush, who has pledged $350 million in U.S. aid to help victims of Asian countries ravaged by the tsunami, has contributed $10,000 from his personal funds to the relief effort, his spokesman said Wednesday.

In a speech on legal issues in Collinsville, Ill., Bush praised the U.S. military for its "heroic work" in assisting tsunami victims and urged Americans to continue to open their wallets.

"The most important contribution a person can make is cash," Bush said. "There's huge generosity here in America."

I like how the NPR anchor said it the other day when the original figure for relief from the U.S. was $35 million. "I thought to myself, 'We spend that much in Iraq before breakfast.'" Even $350 million is paltry, at best, considering the income gap between the U.S. government and these poor third-world countries. I'm sure Bush spent $10k on a ten-gallon hat for his inauguration.

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BUSH'S SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUD

Three links courtesy of BuzzFlash. First, from the New York Times, Princeton economist Paul Krugman explains why, despite Republican ranting and raving, there's not really a Social Security crisis at all:

Stopping the Bum's Rush

Here's the truth: by law, Social Security has a budget independent of the rest of the U.S. government. That budget is currently running a surplus, thanks to an increase in the payroll tax two decades ago. As a result, Social Security has a large and growing trust fund.

When benefit payments start to exceed payroll tax revenues, Social Security will be able to draw on that trust fund. And the trust fund will last for a long time: until 2042, says the Social Security Administration; until 2052, says the Congressional Budget Office; quite possibly forever, say many economists, who point out that these projections assume that the economy will grow much more slowly in the future than it has in the past.

So where's the imminent crisis?

Click here for the rest.

Next, from the Washington Post, a story that shows how Bush is already testing the political waters for his crazy schemes to deal with this non-existent crisis:

Social Security Formula Weighed

Under the proposal, the first-year benefits for retirees would be calculated using inflation rates rather than the rise in wages over a worker's lifetime. Because wages tend to rise considerably faster than inflation, the new formula would stunt the growth of benefits, slowly at first but more quickly by the middle of the century. The White House hopes that some, if not all, of those benefit cuts would be made up by gains in newly created personal investment accounts that would harness returns on stocks and bonds.

And

Opponents of the proposal have also been mobilizing. Under an inflation-linked formula, benefits would keep up with prices, but wage levels determine standards of living, Rother said. Social Security benefits currently equal 42 percent of the earnings of an average worker retiring at 65. Under the new formula, that benefit would fall to 20 percent of pre-retirement earnings. Future retirees would, in effect, be consigned to today's standard of living.

"It's like saying elderly people today should live at a 1940 standard of living," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. "Part of our social contract has been to allow seniors to participate in rising standards of living rather than consigning them to some second-class status in retirement."

But proponents say the shift to price indexing has to be viewed with the addition of private accounts.

"If this was a case of just price indexing and doing nothing else, frankly, some of the [opponents'] charges are pretty valid," John said. "But if you give the personal accounts as well, you're giving people the opportunity to make up the difference. Not everyone will do that, but a substantial number will."

Click here for the rest.

Hmmm. Even proponents admit that these bogus personal accounts will only help a "substantial number" of people. I wonder what that means exactly. My best bet is that "substantial" actually means "a few." For some clarification on that point, here's a quickie from the Center for American Progress:

Bush's Con on Social Security: Cut Benefits and Roll the Die

With Social Security benefits cut, you will be forced to make up the difference on your own. The White House wants you to believe that the "miracle" of private accounts will magically make up the retirement money lost from your soon-to-be cut Social Security benefits. But analysis by MIT professor Peter Diamond and Brookings economist Peter Orszag shows (based on figures from the Social Security actuaries) that average life time earners retiring in 2075 can expect to make up less than half of the cut to their Social Security benefits through private accounts.

Click here for more.

Hmmm. "Less than half." And don't forget that's only for a "substantial number" of people, which probably means "a few."

Angry yet? I sure am.

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Red states, blue TV

From WorkingForChange:

An enduring paradox of our times is that the very people who enjoy watching trashy television heap so much opprobrium on the machinery that produces it. Red-state America hates Hollywood, according to its self-appointed leaders. After national elections in which "moral values" supposedly trumped other concerns, Karl Rove summed up the results: "I think it's people who are concerned about the coarseness of our culture, about what they see on the television sets, what they see in the movies."

Yet red-staters can't get enough of that coarseness. Take this season's breakaway hit, ABC's "Desperate Housewives." One of the show's tawdry plot lines involves a 30-something married woman who is having an affair with her 17-year-old gardener. During November sweeps, the show had higher viewership in red-state markets such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Kansas City than in the blue-state markets of New York and Chicago.

Click here for more.

Hmmm. Maybe they think that sex is better when you're ashamed of it.

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FAREWELL SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
First black congresswoman dies at 80

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Shirley Chisholm, an advocate for minority rights who became the first black woman elected to Congress and later the first black person to seek a major party's nomination for the U.S. presidency, has died. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called her a "woman of great courage."

Chisholm, who took her seat in the U.S. House in 1969, was a riveting speaker who often criticized Congress as being too clubby and unresponsive. An outspoken champion of women and minorities during seven terms in the House, she also was a staunch critic of the Vietnam War.

And

"Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men."

Click here for the rest.

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THE PROBLEM OF GAY MARRIAGE

Tomorrow, January 3rd, is my 37th birthday, which also happens to make eight years since I met the woman who would eventually become my wife. Since neither of us is gay, you might be asking what this has to do with the issue of queer matrimony. Turns out, our heterosexual marriage has everything to do with gay marriage.

From Z Magazine courtesy of ZNet:

Queer Marriage: A New Oxymoron

On the other hand, the institution of marriage is in disrepair. Its history is tied to property and male lineage and initially had as its main role a means of ensuring that a man’s wealth passed to his “legitimate” son. Maternity was obvious, but paternity was more a matter of trust and wishful thinking (DNA testing now replaces this obsolete means of sanctioning the biological “validity” of the heir).

And

Lesbians and gays are not likely, however, to save this institution. Even the pro-family group Concerned Women for America sees marriage as a weak and insecure structure. They note unhappily that by 1999 the percentage of adults living in marriage had “declined steadily to 56 percent.” Divorce- mag.com gives us even more telling stats. They point out that the “median duration of marriage” (1997) is only 7.2 years. Moreover, as of 1997, 50 percent of first marriages and 60 percent of remarriages ended in divorce. As the entertainer Will Rogers said at the turn of the century, “I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage.”

Marriage is propped up by over 1,100 automatic federal benefits—financial, social, pension, immigration, judicial, medical, parental—in addition to being surrounded by a plethora of symbolisms. When blessed by a religious institution, the bond is given a patina of righteousness: the union is God’s will. But if the government or the divine have been joining these couples, why are their marriages falling apart?

Click here for the rest.

It makes perfect sense to me that the excluded among us would seek the same rights and privileges that our society affords to most everyone else, and I agree that homosexuals should be treated equally, but I wonder why the gay rights movement, which I believe has acted as something of a cultural visionary for these last thirty years, would seek to embrace what is historically a sexist, hypocritical, and broken social institution, rather than seek to radically redefine it or create a new and better institution altogether.

Again from Z Magazine:

Why Do Gays Want to Say "I Do?"

From the new feminist movement, we learned that patriarchy—especially when it mandated compulsory heterosexuality—was as bad for queers as it was for women. We also believed, like many feminists, that marriage was, at its best, an imperfect institution, and, at its worst, a dangerous one.

With such history feeding my politics, I am amazed that the feminist critique has been completely lost in the current debate over marriage. Especially since many of the lesbians now working to secure the right to marry came out and came of age in the early 1970s. Today, there is a complete misconception about what feminists saw as the problem with marriage. It wasn’t just that prevailing state laws meant that men had the legal right to rape their wives; or that the issue of domestic violence wasn’t taken seriously; or that most jurisdictions forbade women from signing legal contracts without the consent of their husbands. It was that marriage privatized intimate relationships, hindered community interaction, and regulated sexuality. The feminist critique of marriage sought to promote personal freedom and sexual liberation. It chafed against the notion that the only valid relationships were those that had been endorsed—and financially supported—by the state. The feminist critique of marriage, signed onto fully by the Gay Liberation Front, made clear that the state had no business telling us what we could do with our bodies (especially with regard to reproduction), what we could do in bed, or with whom we could do it. We understood that what the state allowed, or sanctioned, was in the state’s interests, and not ours.

And

All this, obviously, has changed. The gay movement today has gone out of the radical-social-change business and taken up a franchise in the let’s-just-fight-for-equality business. Not that there is anything wrong with equality, it’s just that it doesn’t move the world forward at a very fast rate.

The problem with the current obsession among gay rights groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is that marriage still poses the same problems it did in the late 1960s. Is this the best way for most people to organize their most intimate relationships and does marriage ultimately make people as happy and productive as they might otherwise be? Well, given the 50 percent divorce rate, the ongoing epidemic of domestic violence among straight and gay couples, and the number of people who seek marital counsel from the likes of Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, and Dr. Ruth—not to mention the vital role fantasies of conjugal cheating play on television and in Hollywood, I would have to conclude that marriage falls far short of its exalted reputation.

Click here for the rest.

The bottom line is that marriage itself, not simply the prospect of throwing gays into the mix, is problematic. Homosexuals ask a very fair question: why shouldn't the government and the church formalize and make official their committed life-long relationships? This has made me ask another very fair question: why should the goverment and the church have anything to do with my committed life-long relationship at all? Of course, I'm pleased with the legal and social benefits that came with my marriage--people take married men more seriously, and I would be absolutely devastated if I were not allowed to be at my wife's side if (god forbid) she were hospitalized. But shouldn't everyone have these benefits? Why should I be taken more seriously than a confirmed bachelor? Why shouldn't I be able to be at the side of anyone I love should they be hospitalized? The problem of gay marriage, then, is in reality the problem of marriage.

Why the hell should the government and the church have any authority over my relationship at all? My life, my relationships, my body, are all my own personal business, and the hell with anyone who says otherwise.

With these thoughts in mind, my wife and I, when we got married, tried to design a ceremony that reflected such opinions. First and foremost, we decided to do away with church and state as much as possible: no clergy, no judge, no license, we are what they call in the newspapers "common law" married. Of course, the state is also involved in common law marriages, because after a period of time that varies from state to state of living together and presenting themselves as husband and wife, such couples are legally married for all intents and purposes. But we did do our best to keep the man at bay.

To mock the concept of officializing our relationship, we asked a talented friend to officiate. Of course this wasn't just any friend: our buddy Dave knows ventriloquism, and we asked him to marry us through his dummy. He upped the ante by telling us that his dummy looks like Richard Nixon--all the better I thought; Nixon is the ultimate symbol of government corruption, how fitting. The groomsmen wore shorts; the maid of honor was a man, one of my wife's best friends, dressed in a gorilla suit. Indeed, much of the ceremony was commentary on wedding ceremonies in and of themselves.

Our vows also constituted commentary on marriage:

DAVE: Dear Friends, we are gathered together here to join this man and this woman as husband and wife. Their commitment to each other is based upon friendship, mutual respect, love, and their desire to be together as partners in life.

Becky and Ron, please join hands.

Ron, do you take Becky to be your wedded wife, to live together in marriage? Do you promise to love her, respect her, comfort her, and honor her? For better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live?

RON: I do.

Becky, do you take Ron to be your wedded husband, to live together in marriage? Do you promise to love him, respect him, comfort him, and honor him? For better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live?

BECKY: I do.

DAVE: Ron, please repeat after me, “Becky, I give you this ring as a symbol of my friendship, love, respect and commitment to you, and that I choose you as my wife”

(Ron puts the ring on Becky’s finger)

Becky, please repeat after me, “Ron, I give you this ring as a symbol of my friendship, love, respect and commitment to you, and that I choose you as my husband”

(Becky puts the ring on Ron’s finger)

RON: As Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France to show that there was no authority greater than his own…

BECKY: …so do we now pronounce ourselves husband and wife to show for ourselves that in matters of love and association, there is no authority greater than our own …"Beloved Husband..."

RON: “...Beloved Wife.”

DAVE: I now offer this Blessing of the Apaches.

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other. Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years, May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.

BECKY: “Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.”

RON: “Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
When our time has come
We will be as one
Grow old along with me
Two branches of one tree
Face the setting sun
When the day is done
Spending our lives together
Man and wife together
Grow old along with me
Whatever fate decrees
We will see it through
For our love is true”

And just like that we were married, but it was, and still is, our marriage. Not our families', not the government's, not the church's. It's ours.

On the other hand, I have to admit, we're still happy to enjoy the benefits that couples married more traditionally have, but that gay people and singles don't have, so marriage, as an institution, is still problematic on the whole. (I'd also like to say that the sexist issues historically embedded in marriage are not a problem with me and my wife, but...I'm a man, so...maybe you should go ask Becky how we're doing on that front.) Anyway, the point to all this is that while I thoroughly support the right for gay people to marry, I fault the gay rights movement overall for abandoning its radical tradition in order to embrace such a flawed and conservative institution. I also acknowledge the irony or hypocricy that my own marriage makes of such a statement: however, my wife and I have done everything we can think of to address the problems of marriage in a way that is mutually satisfactory to the both of us.

One thing's for sure. As the rambling nature of this post reveals, the problem of gay marriage, and marriage in general, is quite confusing and complicated.

Happy birthday to me.

(Quotes from the ceremony: "Beloved Husband/Beloved Wife" is from the film Logan's Run; Becky's extended quote is from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116," and my extended quote is from the John Lennon song "Grow Old with Me.")

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RIGHT-WING CHRISTIANS
ARE HEARTLESS SCUMBAGS

From WorkingForChange:

But, as of December 30, some of the president's major family-values constituents have yet to be heard from: It's business as usual at the web sites of the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, and the Coral Ridge Ministries.

These powerful and well-funded political Christian fundamentalist organizations appear to be suffering from a compassion deficit. Organizations which are amazingly quick to organize to fight against same-sex marriage, a woman's right to choose, and embryonic stem cell research are missing in action when it comes to responding to the disaster in southern Asia. None of their web sites are actively soliciting aid for the victims of the earthquake/tsunami.

In fact, there is no mention of the giant earthquake and tsunami that devastated southern Asia. There are no headlines about the dead, injured or the tremendous damage; there are no urgent appeals for donations; there are no phone numbers to call; there are no links to organizations collecting money and providing aid for the victims.

Click here for the rest.

It's one thing to be heartless. It's another thing entirely to present oneself as a follower of Jesus and an advocate of Godly compassion while at the same time ignoring those who suffer and leading crusades of condemnation. That's where the scumbag part comes in. At this point, I think it's safe to say that even though these people call theselves "Christian," they have absolutely nothing to do with Christ. Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. Jesus not only accepted society's cast-offs, but he also embraced them. This is, of course, the opposite of what right-wing fundamentalists do. Scumbags, indeed.

If you, unlike the fundamentalists, want to donate to help the tsunami victims, here is a list of legitimate charities, courtesy of Tom Tomorrow, courtesy of the Daily Kos.

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LONGHORNS WIN ROSE BOWL
Texas 38, Michigan 37

From the Austin American-Statesman:

Mangum lined up with two seconds to play after Texas had advanced the ball to the Michigan 19 and opted to let the clock run down rather than attempt a third-down play. Mack Brown's confidence in his senior kicker paid off. The low kick wasn't pretty, but it was good.

Texas' first appearance in the Rose Bowl thus ended with a wild celebration in the orange-painted end zone.

The Longhorns (11-1) had never played Michigan in 112 years of football, and the first meeting was worth the wait.

Texas' Vince Young, the bowl's most valuable offensive player, ran for 180 yards and four touchdowns as he became the first Longhorn quarterback to run and pass for 1,000 yards in a season.

Click here for the rest.

What a nail-biter! I was certain that the 'Horns were going to blow it when they fell behind by ten in the third quarter. Fortunately, I was wrong. And, man, Vince Young is something else. Living in Baton Rouge, having only limited basic cable, I haven't gotten to see the Longhorns play much this season: Young is like one of Professor Xavier's mutants; it was all just too weird with him darting about the gridiron like a super-hero. What a game!

On a less happy note, my current school LSU was robbed of victory in the Capitol One Bowl on a touchdown pass during the last play of the game thrown by a guy from--get this--Baytown. I never knew this Drew Tate guy when I was there--after all, he went to the other high school in my district. But he was the pride of the town, a real hot shot, and people certainly talked about him quite a bit. Whatever. Baytown's still messing with me after all this time. "From Hell's heart I stab at thee," eh?

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