They Ain't Listening Either

A while back, I wrote a piece about how the military is ignoring the anaphylaxis of climate change skeptics and pursuing a core strategy of going green. To keep up with all the latest and greatest at the DoD and their green endeavors, check out this link. Pretty cool, huh? Man, they've got a lot going on there!

A recent column in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune shows that there is another segment of our society that isn't listening to the climate change skeptics either: Business.


Problem is, for the skeptics -- business leaders didn't get the memo.Business isn't waiting for politicians to act. Sustainability has moved from the tributaries of society into the mainstream of commerce. CEOs "have a number of stakeholders that are pushing them in this direction," says B. Andrew Brown, partner and regulatory affairs department head at Dorsey & Whitney LLP. "Customers, investors, employees, even banks and insurance companies." 


Management is learning that an embrace of sustainability is a rich strategy in an intensely competitive global economy. It offers another approach to risk management (just ask Mattel's management about the cost of recalling millions of toys manufactured in China and tainted with toxic lead paint).It's also a way to lower costs and boost efficiency.

Many of my regular readers know that I spend a fair amount of time ripping the business community. I have to admit that this article was a welcome surprise and is, without a doubt, another example of my happiness (dare I say glee?) at being wrong. So who are these companies embracing this new core strategy?

Take Wal-Mart, the controversial retail giant. Five years ago, then chief executive Lee Scott launched Sustainability 360 with three major goals: Using 100 percent renewable energy, creating zero waste and selling sustainable products. With 2005 as its baseline, for instance, a Sustainability 360 goal was to hike fleet fuel efficiency by 25 percent by October 2008. It rose 38 percent instead, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 200,000 tons a year and saving the firm more than $200 million a year. That's real money, even for a behemoth like Wal-Mart.

I've never been a fan of Wal Mart but you have to give them props for this. Wow.

Who else?

Sustainability is a driver of innovation within companies like Dow Chemical and General Electric, creating new markets and profit centers. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are betting big with an eye toward earning a payoff from clean-tech innovations.


Global investment in clean energy of all kinds rose from $46 billion in 2004 to $200 billion in 2010.

As I have been saying all along, there's a lot of money to be made in green tech and it looks like we have a lot of private businesses paying attention.

The best part about all of this, though, is how the free market is actually leading the way. The article's overall tone is that business isn't going to wait for government to come up with a solution. Honestly, they'll be waiting a long time as long as the current form of the GOP is around although it is pretty hilarious to see that not admitting fault/winning the argument trumps making money with them and their supporters. I guess I was wrong about money being the most important thing to them. Clearly, it's pride.

So that's two things I'm wrong about. Seriously stunning.....:)

Unhijacking The Founding Fathers

Usually I put up a Bill Maher final New Rule without comment but this one needs a second audio track. How about we start with...It's about time someone did this!

For too long, conservatives and libertarians have cloaked themselves in the founding fathers and the Constitution. Much like they interpret the Bible (my way or a lake of hellfire for you), their view of the formation of this country is filled with delusions. Maher points out one of these when he describes Glenn Beck's propensity to dress up like Thomas Paine. In fact, if you want to know how close Glenn Beck is to playing with his own poo, read his 'version' of Common Sense. As I mentioned the other day, events that took place in the latter half of the 18th century have an historical context. Paine's Common Sense was written from the point of view of someone taxed by a monarch. Barack Obama is not King George III. This is going to be one of my new mantras, b to the w.

The other thing that Bill points out in this commentary is yet another sad (and tragic) making of a myth. Take a look at the photo at left. Somehow this image is historically accurate for a large segment of our country. There are a couple of my regular readers who have said as much in comments. The image here is so far from reality that I can't help but call it for what it is.


It's a child's fairy tale.

Many of you will jump to the conclusion that I am being mean or snarky. Quite the contrary. That's Maher's job. Mine is one of profound frustration and great sadness. The founding fathers were products of the Age of Enlightenment and the big ones (Washington, Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison, Monroe) were Deists. Paine and Jefferson believed in the teachings of the morality of Christ and did not believe that he was holy nor resurrected. But somehow, through a very sad delusion, they were conservative and would've tarred and feathered any liberal or progressive. This is a sad perception that honestly causes so many problems that they are too numerous to list here.

Maher has some pretty great quotes from our founding fathers in this clip that more or less prove that, if they were around today, it's pretty clear that Sarah Palin would be accusing them of blood libel.

Why Am I Not Surprised?

I'm currently engaged in a discussion in comments regarding the memorial service in Tuscon last week (see also: Obama looks good, must be up to no good, he must fail). As usual, Jon Stewart illustrates the silliness of all of it in a much more eloquent fashion than I could.

"The people of Tuscon didn't know how to publicly grieve to our expectations."

No shit.

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The Sad Making of Myths

Sit back for a moment and think about Rosa Parks. What are the first images that come into your head?

Tired, old black woman...wouldn't give up her seat in the front of the bus to a white man...poor old woman beaten down by oppression...right?

Wrong. There is nothing in the above sentence that is factually accurate.

Rosa Parks was, in fact, 42 on December 1, 1955 when the bus incident occurred. Now some of you may think that is old but I'm 43 and, so if you do, fuck off! She wasn't tired from working either. She had two jobs. One was the job at the department store. The other was the secretary for the NAACP. In fact, the entire event was a planned protest and not the simple bus ride that myth making has made it into. Parks received training in peaceful resistance and had been planning for some time to not move if asked. Others had planned similar protests if the issue cam up. That seat, by the way, was in the back of the bus in the black section not the front of the bus. The law back then stated that if the front was full, blacks would have to make room for white people in the back. She was asked to stand up and didn't when a white man walked to the back to try to take her seat.

Many people believe that this famous photo (left) is an image from the incident. In fact, it was a staged photo. The man behind Ms. Parks is a UPI reporter and not some evil white man. Ms. Parks is also shown here in the front of the bus. During the actual event, she was in the mid back section of the bus and the driver came back, when the bus got more crowded, and moved the sign 'Whites Only' behind her and asked her to get up.

Over the years, the story has been simplified because people in this country need to have easy to swallow caplets. They can't take the time nor do they have the patience to think about the complexities of situations like this. They hear a few catch phrases, some pretty words, see a bright shiny object, and, before you know it, a myth is born.

This is also true of the Tea Party.

It frustrates me to no end the manner in which the Tea Party got its name. In fact, it would be one of those delusions, not opinions, that the conservative movement of this country holds. The Boston Tea Party was an event that occurred due to taxation without representation. On December 16, 1773, colonists, outraged by paying taxes to a monarch and an aristocracy an ocean away as well as the monopoly created by the East India Company, dumped three shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor.

The current Tea Party got its name from Rick Santilli who, in a CNBC broadcast, called for 'tea party' in the Chicago River on February 19, 2009. There had been planned protests before this but this is when the social movement was truly galvanized. And, as with the Boston Tea Party, the current Tea Party's cry is "Taxation without representation." Much like the story of Rosa Parks, we are seeing a myth being woven right before our eyes.

It is a delusion to say that we are taxed without representation. We all have representatives in Congress. We may not like them but, unlike the Boston Tea Party, we have the power to change that. Unfortunately, this requires time and dedication-two things people in our culture today are very reticent to embrace. Some have made Tea Partying a full time job but most are just pissed off and don't want to invest the time or attention to detail to actually solve any problems. They have heard their catch phrases, seen a few pretty words (the rebirth of the Don't Tread on Me Flag-another out of context myth), and marveled at their bright shiny object that is currently the latest social movement.

This myth has actually done a great deal of damage to the perception of our government. Barack Obama is not King George III. Nor is any other representative, Republican or Democrat. There is, however, an aristocracy but those in it are martyred by the Tea Parties as being oppressed by the socialists/fascists/nazis/communists that run our government. Yet the perception is twisted and we are left with this myth thanks to the Tea Party

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

A perfect summation courtesy of Paul Kruggman. I'll be talking more about his recent column in the future because I found it to be largely accurate but for now let's look at this statement. It's a complete myth. There are no tyrannical impositions on their liberty that come close to the ones we saw in the 18th century. It's not an opinion, it's a delusion and this is what I meant by not coddling these sorts of perceptions anymore.

Conveying historical context with the Tea Party is about as easy as pushing a 200 ton boulder up Mt.Hood. Seriously, have any of them read the Constitution which they hold up as a bastion of liberty?

Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;


To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;


To regulate Commerce among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

This is what the US Constitution says. Do they just skip over this part or do they have their own special interpretation of it?

I'm hoping that people look back on this time 55 years from now and they have not embraced the same myth that has been created around Rosa Parks. I'd like to see people wonder why on earth an organization called itself the Tea Party when the historical reference is completely inaccurate and totally out of context.

The cynical side of me is saying that I am being too naive. I wonder what lie teachers will tell their students about the Tea Party in 55 years.

Reflections on Today

Last fall, The Christian Science Monitor featured race as the cover story to their September 18, 2010 issue. I had planned to talk about it back then but decided to wait until Dr. King's day today. The entire article is fantastic and it's worth a long, soaking read. Central to the piece are seven lessons that we all need to heed.

Lesson 1: Recognize how far we've come

Compare the images of the early 60s to where we are now with the first black mayor elected to Philadelphia, MS. That's quite an achievement and there is no doubt that Dr. King would be amazed.

Lesson 2: Talk about race like a Southerner

From the article...

Contrast the quick national judgment of Sherrod (who was eventually offered reinstatement, but declined) with a recent experience David Hooker, a black community-builder, had visiting Oxford, Miss., another iconic civil rights town steeped in Confederate history. Mr. Hooker, who lives in Atlanta and teaches at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., stepped into the Ajax bar to order some food. A white Mississippian sitting at the bar said to no one in particular, but within Hooker's earshot, "I remember when they didn't let niggers in here."

Recounting the episode, Hooker says he replied, "That was crazy, wasn't it? I remember that, too."

Hooker adds: "He kind of looked at me, like, 'What do you mean? You're not going to be offended?' "

The two ended up having a 45-minute chat that spanned the election of Obama, the Ole Miss football team, and hopes for their kids.

This is how to handle situations like this: find common ground. Just beautiful...

Lesson 3: Leverage 'friendship potential'

Pettigrew says that the at times juvenile "he said, she said" tenor of the race debate in America can be attributed to a simple fact: Much of the rest of America has missed out on both forced and voluntary race reconciliation in the South. That process, Pettigrew says, has been driven by the growing class equality in the region, which has raised what he calls "friendship potential" in the public sphere.

This has to do more with ignorance and a decidedly condescending attitude that many white liberal northerners have about blacks in the south. We talked a great deal about this in that Beyond Diversity seminar I attended. It's dys-consciousness...I don't know what I don't know.

Lesson 4: Blacks love Southern opportunity

This lesson will certainly please the libertarians who post here.

"What's changed in the South is that people increasingly tolerate the individual," says Mr. Griffin, explaining his decision to return and invest in the town where riot police once turned back black civil rights marchers after they crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge on their way to Montgomery. "If there's prejudice today, it's more of a class thing than a racial thing."

Essentially, there are opportunities in the south that aren't available in the north because of a new found tolerance. This would go in hand with Lesson #1...recognizing how far we have come. Far, indeed, with blacks being core to many Southern businesses.

Lesson 5: Don't stereotype whites

"People think the only [ones] negatively impacted by Jim Crow's official and unofficial policies were African-Americans in the South," says Hooker. "But [prejudice] was taught by violence and coercion – deeply wounding ways of enforcing an unnatural behavior. Over time, that's as painful for the people who have had to maintain the system as it is for the people who were intentionally marginalized.

Agreed. There is an entire unrecognized group of victims here just like Hooker. It's hard to see them at times but that would come with contact, communication, and friendship.

Lesson 6: Segregation by any other name...

A group of historians – including Mr. Sokol and the University of Michigan's Matt Lassiter – are revisiting how the North and South diverged after the Civil War. One of Mr. Lassiter's findings is that Northern segregation happened largely by the same kind of government decrees that enshrined segregation in the South.

I agree completely. This would be one of Loewen's Lies. The north had just as much complicity in the south's institutionalized slavery.

Lesson 7: Keep moving forward

The hard one. I asked the leader of Beyond Diversity how I should tolerant of intolerance and her answer was, "You just have to recognize it as their truth. Say to them 'That's your truth' and I respect it.'" Easier said than done. I'd have to say that I've done a poor job of it thus far.

But articles like this give me a great deal of hope. Dr. King's legacy is on display for all to see in the year 2010.

We are going forward because of his life and his sacrifice.

Do You Want to Live Forever?

I've long been an avid reader and watcher of science fiction. There are lots of movies and books that deal with immortality: Highlander, Zelazny's This Immortal, Haldeman's Buying Time, Blish's Cities in Flight, much of Varley's and Niven's work, and pretty much any vampire story.

Who wouldn't want to live forever?

To tell the truth, a lot of people. Old, sick, lonely people.

Several years ago my wife's grandmother was in a nursing home. She was 96 years old, unable to walk, going blind, going deaf, and always in pain. Her husband was dead. All her friends too. She had outlived her eldest daughter. Even the small town where she'd lived most of her life had disappeared. She was all alone. So at one point she just gave up and died.

Until then I never understood why characters in immortality novels so often got weary with living forever. It seemed so unrealistic and stupid to welcome death. But I was looking at it from the viewpoint of a young, healthy person. Who wouldn't want to to live forever if you're strong and vigorous?

But that's not how it works. We weaken and decline as we age. Seeing through the eyes of my wife's grandmother, I finally understood. We slowly lose everything: friends, family, strength, mobility, vision, hearing, taste, control of our bowels. Sure, you can struggle on life support for years, live in pain, or have your mind dulled by drugs, or perhaps worse, lose it completely to Alzheimer's. But why?

Last year the big flap over the health care bill was over death panels. The term itself was an outright lie. There were no death panels in that legislation. It was a provision to pay physicians for an end-of-life discussion with patients. Something that every elderly patient is going to have with their physician in any case, and something that was actually allowed for in previous legislation. It basically gave doctors a charge code for the discussion so that it could be properly accounted for, rather than bill it under some other category.

But real death panels do exist. One of them is the Republican-run government of Arizona. Jan Brewer signed a law cutting Medicaid payments for seven types of transplants. Two patients have died since the law went into effect in October, likely because of they were denied transplants.

And that's not the only death panel. Health insurance companies have life-time limits on the number of dollars patients can receive. The committees of the private companies that set these limits are death panels that decide who lives and who dies.

When you apply for insurance the company has a panel that looks at your medical history and decides whether they'll accept you. If you have any untoward risk factors -- say, you have cancer or need a heart transplant -- this panel of health insurance company employees will deny you coverage. In effect, sentencing you to death.

But wait, there's more! Other death panels include the statisticians who look at medical costs and decide what the premiums will be for insuring employees of small businesses. By putting these employees into their own tiny risk pools, they guarantee that the premiums will be high -- usually too high for most small businesses to afford, thus locking them out of health care coverage. If you work for a small company and have a disease, the insurance company will sentence you to death by making the premium too high for your employer to pay. Big employers can often avoid detailed scrutiny and all their employees get accepted automatically

That's the reality of health care today. We have private companies making for-profit decisions on who will live and who will die. The company can either cover thousands of additional families or pay the CEO a billion dollar stock bonus.

And when these private companies ditch you, who picks up the slack? Well, the federal government. When you're sick and destitute enough you'll qualify for Medicaid and you may be able to get some help. Unless you live in Arizona and need a certain type of transplant.

My point here is not really to slam Brewer for making hard choices on who lives and who dies. The cuts in Arizona may well be right thing to in the grand scheme of things. We only have so much money to spend on health care, and we've got to spend it on things that do the most good for the most people. Transplants are expensive and very often not successful, especially when there are other underlying risk factors, as is the case with at least one of the patients who died in Arizona. Transplants require that you live the rest of your life with a depressed immune system to avoid rejection, which is a time-bomb in itself.

I'm slamming the hypocrisy of people who railed against the health care bill and are now vowing to repeal it without offering any replacement. The core of the bill is common-sense provisions that Americans want: no limit on life-time payments, preventing insurance companies from denying coverage for preexisting conditions, preventing companies from dropping your coverage when you start getting expensive, and being able to get insurance if you lose your job.

The problem is paying for this. During the health care debate the Republicans refused to engage in any reasonable discussion of how to finance it. They ignored the nuance and subtleties of the problems that Brewer is facing now in Arizona. They made the public option -- obviously constitutional, since it's just a tax -- politically toxic, making it impossible for many Democrats to go along with it. Their only goal was to hand Obama a big fat defeat.

The Republicans need to stop playing political football with our lives and our health, and get serious about health care reform. Pretty much all Americans think we need the protections mentioned above, no matter what they think about the health care bill itself. You don't like being forced to buy insurance? I don't either, but someone's got to pay for it. Mitt Romney used to understand this, before he started running for president.

Right now we're paying much more for our health care than other countries do, for worse outcomes as a nation. People don't get regular care for problems as they arise. They wait until problems become critical and put them in the emergency room, which is ridiculously expensive. At which point their health is compromised and they'll have ongoing costs that will be much higher than if they had dealt with the problem in the first place. This is especially true with the epidemic of obesity and diabetes going on now.

The system is broken. There's too much overhead, mostly concentrated in the health insurance industry. We don't really need dozens of armies of private-sector beancounting middlemen to "manage" our health care system, especially when their interest isn't in actually cutting medical costs, but rather to get a percentage of an ever-growing pie. (Many of these companies are forming vertical networks, providing insurance and care. Which means they now have no incentive to cut costs).

The biggest problem with the health care bill is employer mandates, not the mandate that everyone get health insurance. It's just an accident of history that companies used health care as a cheap recruiting gimmick in the 50s. Employers don't pay for our food or housing (unless we're CEOs), why should they pay for our doctors? We should all be responsible for our own health care, as we are for other necessities. This would also put everyone should be in the same risk pool, since we'd all be directly insured instead of being segmented up by employer. Relieved of the direct burden of employee health care, companies should pay a tax to keep premiums lower for everyone, and to pay for Americans who can't buy their own insurance. The rate should be based on the amount of harm their industry causes to the health of their employees and Americans at large. McDonalds, Coke and Pepsi would have a real incentive to make healthier products. And Phillip Morris? Well, the handwriting has been on the wall for years.

There is at least one positive aspect to the Republican push for repeal and the individual mandate. It makes it that much more obvious that single-payer is the only logical way to do this. The Obama administration shied away from it because they wanted to the get the insurance companies on board. But in the long run I think everyone realizes single-payer is going to happen. It only makes sense. And it already exists for senior citizens, even though so many of those Tea Party protesters yap about keeping the government's hands off their Medicare.

Do we want to live forever? It's a moot question at this point. Our health care system should be focused on providing the longest, healthiest lives for the greatest number of Americans. We should all be paying for it because we're all using it: kids breaking their ankles skateboarding, young women having babies, annual medical and dental checkups. Everyone catches colds and needs vaccinations.

And at the end of it all death panels of neither government bureaucrats nor money-grubbing corporate execs should be deciding grandma's fate. She should be making her own decision with the advice of her physician.

My Lyin' Eyes

Take a look at this photo to the left.

It was recently added in comments and is, more or less, the sentiment of some posters in regard to yours truly. I am blaming the right for the tragedy in Arizona and their rhetoric or actions in no way, shape or form have anything to do with it. I'm a shameful person who, like this cartoon, is exploiting the tragedy for political gains.

Essentially, I am not a patriot like....Joe Wilson.

Take a look at Mr. "You Lie" in this photo. Here we see Congressmen Wilson hanging out at the Palmetto State Armory which (until recently) was selling a lower receiver for an AR-15 with the engraving "You Lie!" on it. This is seen clearly in the photo to the left of Congressmen Wilson. Apparently, though, he has not officially endorsed this. And after the shootings in Tuscon a week ago, the item has been taken down and is not available for sale.

Help me out, here, folks. The people that actually sell products like this are all good and are in no way at all related to any shooting at all...EVER! It's all the left's fault and they are the shameful evil ones! So am I!!!! AHHHHH, the shame!!!!!

I guess I must be deluded in thinking there was any sort of correlation between people that put things like this on guns and stirring up violent sentiment and actions. I must need my head shrinked!

Another Excellent Summation

I think it speaks volumes that our new Speaker of the House chose to skip the memorial service in Arizona and stay in DC. One need only look at his reason for skipping out to see yet another illustration of why I am a Democrat.

He had to go to a cocktail party.

Oh, Snap!

This is from a billboard in Tuscon. Apparently, it came down very quickly after the shooting which got me to thinking....Rush et al may be griping about blood libel but they sure are falling all over themselves to make changes. Palin took down her crosshairs map as well.

As is often the case with these folks, they remind me of my 8 year old son who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Several weak excuses are offered along with promises to continue to the behavior no matter what (!) but as soon as the threat of losing cookies forever (or, in this case, audience share) looms large, a rapid shift occurs in behavior.

But is it an 8 year old temper tantrum or an adolescent power fantasy? It seems to go back and forth. Perhaps it's both. This is an overall characteristic we see in today's version of conservatism...a sort of Neapolitan libertarianism. They really don't like rules and, quite honestly, don't seem to like people either. They just want to be able to do what they want and get pissed off to the max when they have to adjust. I wonder how many mouths foamed at taking down this billboard. Again, this is all they have.

As my friend Marc recently mentioned, in a near perfect description of the new right, when we were out at the pub recently , "They drove a Camaro in high school and this is their only intellectual outlet."

Front Loading

Here is Colbert from last night which serves as a most excellent front load to my piece below it.

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Doubling Down

For those of you who want a very specific example of why I am a Democrat, compare Sarah Palin's speech yesterday to President Obama's speech.

Instead of taking the high road, Sarah Palin decided to double down and use her position as a powerful force within the conservative movement in this country to fully illustrate why people should be talking about her in connection with the shooting.

If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

So, Sarah Palin has now put herself on the same level as oppressed Jews accused of using Christian children's blood in religious ceremonies. Really? Let's compare here statement (which can be read in full here) with Keith Olbermann's statement read on the night of the shooting.

Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our Democracy, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence. Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are Americans.

You know what the above is called, folks? Taking Responsibility. 

All of this discourse over the last week has made me realize that, in general, the right wing of this country completely fails in two very distinct yet related ways.

The first way they epically fail is by loudly asserting in one breath that people need to own up to their actions and then completely failing to take ownership of any of their own actions in..well...anything...in the other breath. We saw this for 8 years with President Bush. He could never admit fault. We see it on here in any discussion of race. We see it with Sarah Palin in this situation.

Let's review some key facts:

1. Sarah Palin puts up a map with rifle crosshairs on it early last year targeting certain congressional districts for the fall campaign.

2. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' district was one of the districts targeted.

2. Gabrielle Giffords calls Palin to the map for saying this and speaks of "consequences" in an interview on MSNBC.

3. Giffords' office  is attacked along with fellow Arizona congressmen Raul Girjalva's office.

3. Ms. Giffords is shot in the head later in th year.

These four things are facts. They happened. And Palin wants to stifle any conversation about any of this? Then doubles down and uses the term "blood libel" in relation to herself. Does she know that Giffords is JEWISH? My commenters accuse me of having no shame and scoring political points. Are you fucking KIDDING me?

Imagine if Hillary Clinton had done that and someone had been shot in the head. Imagine if it were Muslims that put up a map like this. The reaction would be exactly the same as mine...likely worse...from the right. And they would be correct. The defense, from the right, for the crosshairs map is that the Democrats put one out in 2004. My question is a simple one.

DID ANYONE GET SHOT IN THE HEAD?!?

The second, and equally important, way that the right wing epically fails is their titanic resistance to the idea that people don't operate in a vacuum. Palin again from yesterday.

Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

Wrong. David Adkisson walked into a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee and killed two people, wounding seven others. During his interview, Adkisson said that he believed that all liberals should be killed because they are ruining the country. Books by Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly were found in his home. People don't operate in a vacuum. Even if Loughner had been found with Palin's books and the crosshairs map, she still would've denied any responsibility...just as Hannity, Savage and O'Reilly all did back in 2008.

As I wrote about the other day, we are the product of our socialization. The way people behave is not simply a result of their own actions but the result of a lifetime of interactions with both the people and the institutions of our country. The media is an institution of our country that is overwhelmingly influential and poweful. Make no mistake, folks. I am not saying that Hannity caused Adkisson to go out and shoot these people. It was the combination of Hannity (et al), Adkisson's own warped mind, and the failure of the various agencies of socialization in Adkisson's life. It was the combination of all these factors. As a side note, this is why I think gun control is ludicrous. The guns aren't the problem...the agencies of socialization are the problem if they fail!

So, it's a double (and most epic) fail illustrated beautifully in the form of Sarah Palin. She can't own up to her own contribution to the overall problem and she can't admit that Jared Loughner is who he is because of the culture in which he lives. This is a fundamental (and most common) flaw in conservative ideology. Quite frankly, it's a flaw that needs to be corrected if our society ever wants to get any further down the road. We need to understand that it is both.

The icing on the (hilarious) cake is that she falls back into what we clearly should all get past...as this latest tragedy so eloquently illustrates...she blames liberals, using the term "blood libel," and once again TARGETS them as evil. And we are right back in the shit...again!

Honestly, though, it's clear why she and other right wingers are pissed. Their insecurity is glaringly obvious. Nearly every discussion I've ever had with the right has been like this. This is why they accuse Social Security of being like a Ponzi Scheme:. They don't have informed opinions...only delusions that fit their anger....so they make shit up, pulling it deep from within their asses. The real reason why she and some others on the right are PO'd about this is that they have nothing else. They have to resort to insane levels of hyperbole.  "Don't retreat, reload" is their meat. If that mode of discourse is taken away, their position will be revealed for what it is.

Full of sound and fury...signifying nothing.

Cold, hard facts and cold, dead hands

Video games have been blamed for much of the violence in the last decade. I have no doubt that sooner or later that someone will make that connection with Jared Loughner. But video games, as simulations of reality, can offer some insights.

Computer and role-playing games model reality in many ways, but most break down combat into offensive and defensive capabilities. Offensive capabilities have statistics such as basic to-hit chance, accuracy, weapon speed, type of damage, rate of fire, and raw numerical damage. Defensive capabilities have statistics such as deflection, dodging, parrying, and damage resistance or damage reduction.

Most games model armor and helmets as providing damage resistance and sometimes deflection. Shields more often provide deflection rather than damage resistance, and provide a chance to block attacks. Hand weapons such as swords, staves, polearms and the like have statistics such accuracy, speed, damage, parrying chance and the like. Missile weapons such as bows, thrown spears and guns have stats for basic hit chance, accuracy, damage type, total damage, and rate of fire.

Some games provide additional rules for resolving total damage inflicted based on hit location: a shot to the hand can't kill you immediately and the total damage is often limited to some fraction of a torso hit. A shot to the head will do double or quadruple damage based on ammunition type.

Note the total lack of defensive statistics that missile weapons provide.

The other thing you learn from video games is tactics: strike first, strike hard, and strike from concealment.

It's been widely reported that Gabrielle Giffords was a supporter of gun rights. After the door of her office was smashed in during the health care tirades (they were hardly debates) she apparently decided to carry a pistol. Arizona has some of the most liberal gun laws in the country: a recently passed concealed carry law allows almost anyone to buy a gun and hide it on their person almost anywhere they go.

But as anyone who plays video games knows, guns provide no defensive protection. At best they provide first-strike capability if the attacker is detected, or more likely, a retributive strike after the initial onslaught. At worst, guns provide no protection at all if the shooter is fast, agile, calm and prepared.

And that's exactly how it played out in Arizona. Giffords never had a chance because Loughner came at her from behind and capped her. With a high-capacity clip, he was then able to shoot almost two dozen people in a matter of seconds. Giffords may well have had her pistol in her purse. It didn't matter. If she had been wearing it on her hip, or even holding it in her hand, it still wouldn't have mattered.

The only way this would have played out differently is if Giffords had had an armed security detail that had identified Loughner as a potential threat. They might have been able to stop him from approaching Giffords from behind, but given Arizona's gun laws, he had every right to meet the congresswoman while packing heat. So they would have had to let him talk to her. And at any point during the conversation Loughner could reach into his jacket, pull out his pistol and shoot her in the heart. Maybe the security detail could stop him, maybe not. But there was no detail, so it's a moot point. (And I wonder how long it will be before Giffords is called irresponsible for not taking precautions? "You screwed up -- you trusted me!")

And security details can sometimes be the problem. A Pakistani politician was killed by one of his guards last week. The killer -- a conservative Muslim who despised the liberal policies of the governor of Punjab province -- is now being celebrated as a hero by many devout Muslims.

Now imagine, as I'm sure many of you are, that every person in the crowd was packing. After Loughner shoots Giffords everyone is momentarily stunned. During that time Loughner shoots the aide standing next to her. Then the judge standing in line to talk to her. Then he starts shooting randomly into the crowd.

Semiautomatic pistols fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Someone practiced at this can fire two or three shots per second, maybe more. Loughner apparently got a lot of practice and was a good shot.

Then the crowd realizes what is happening and they all reach into their jacket holsters and purses for their pistols, fumble to find and click off the safeties, and raise their weapons to aim and finally fire. Five seconds have gone by, and Loughner would have gotten 10 to 15 shots off. He's shooting into a crowd, firing at random. His shots will find targets no matter how bad his aim is.

Now the crowd -- untrained, panicked old ladies, moms with kids, and middle-aged men -- start shooting at Loughner. It's well known that handgun accuracy among even well-trained policemen is abysmally low in live-fire situations. Here it would certainly be lower. Ninety to 95% of the bullets fired would miss Loughner. But they could very well hit other people in the crowd, or even Giffords herself.

Remember the old joke about the circular firing squad?

Then there's the problem of identifying the aggressor. Early on in the war in Afghanistan more troops died from friendly fire than enemy action. If everyone has guns and is shooting, how does anyone know who the bad guys are?

In the Arizona incident there actually was a guy with a gun who came onto the scene. Joe Zamudio heard the shots, came rushing in and saw a guy with a gun. Zamudio put his hand on his weapon and . . . did not draw it. As it turned out, the guy with the gun had just taken it from Loughner. Zamudio kept his weapon holstered as long as possible to avoid being mistaken for the shooter. If he'd had it out with a round in the chamber, giving him that much less time to observe the situation, would he have shot an innocent man? He counts himself very lucky.

This is why cops wear uniforms: so that they can identify each other easily and civilians can recognize their authority. Cops coming on to the scene of a mass shootout have no way of identifying who's who, and could easily shoot the "good" guys.

Then there's the psychological angle. If you buy a gun you have to assume you're going to kill someone some day. Because you can't just threaten someone with it. Odds are they'll see the fear in your eyes, and they'll take that gun from you. And they may use it on you and your loved ones. Unless you're prepared to kill someone, owning a gun "for protection" is foolish.

Finally there are the consequences of killing someone. Cops and soldiers often suffer severe psychological trauma after a shooting. And they're trained to deal with it, fully expecting they will have to kill someone someday. Civilians without training would be at least as devastated, unless they're already halfway down the road the Loughner is on.

The tragedy in Arizona is really no different from Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood and dozens of home, postal and office rampages. Some suicidal nut job motivated by religion, politics, divorce, alienation, or revenge gets a gun and shoots people up.

Because a gun is not like a Kevlar vest or a ballistic helmet, it is not protection in any meaningful sense. It is a deterrent only because it threatens retaliation. If someone doesn't care whether they live or die, or they believe that they are faster and better and can outshoot their victims, or they are attacking from the rear, from cover or from great range, guns provide no protection whatsoever.

The one exception is in the theater of war, where it is (usually) obvious what the threats are, and threats can be preemptively neutralized. This is the proverbial best-defense-is-a-good-offense sort of protection.

But it points out the fallacy of carrying a weapon in a civil society. It is no sort of protection for the average person: the bad guys will just shoot first. Like Loughner, they will just cap you from behind if they think you're armed. Do we really want to turn our streets into warzones where people shoot first out of fear?

In Arizona there are six more pairs of cold, dead hands because we as a nation refuse to acknowledge the cold, hard facts about guns.

The Michael Jordan Generation

My senior year in high school was pretty amazing for a number of reasons. The first was that I had a fucking killer girlfriend. Gorgeous, fun, opinionated, highly intelligent and so much more, she really set the tone for what kind of woman I would be attracted to over my life. In addition, I had a great group of friends, was very involved in the TV studio and theater at the school, and had a great little business I had started painting and detailing windows. I only had a few customers but I made great money for 1984.

It was that same year that my beloved Chicago Bulls finally saw a ray of light and hope join their team in the form of the best player to ever play the game. He averaged 28 points a game on just over 50 percent shooting that season and became an instant star. Just a few years later, he led the Bulls to the first of 2 threepeats. His name was Michael Jordan and there is no doubt in my mind that he is responsible for the giant pile of shit that currently is American culture.

Now, I like Mike as much as the next person. I'm even a huge fan of sports and enjoy watching it regularly. But if you are someone who grew up during his era, you were socialized at a very key point in the development of our culture. And, as I will illustrate, it's not really Mike personally that was (and still is) the problem. It was the institutions in our society and the interactions that our citizens have with them that created the malaise. And its zenith was Michael Jordan so, like doctors that get diseases named after them, I am naming this one the Michael Jordan Generation (MJG).

We are not a nation of rugged individualists. I know that's going to send many commenters here into anaphylaxis but people aren't perpetual soloists in a culture as developed as ours. How we function in the interactions with our society's institutions (functionalism) and with each other (symbolic interaction) dictates our behavior. I've always been a blank slate fellow. I don't agree with Rousseau's concept of innate goodness nor do I think that we are all wretched sinners who need Jesus to save us. Being a believer in Christ means coming to Him of your own free will, not scoring brownie points in either beating yourself up or feeling guilty because you think someone's ass (male or female) is hot. You are a blank slate and the teachings of Christ...your belief in him...and your interactions within Christianity (or whatever you believe in) help to define who you are along with the multitude of other things with which you interact. 

Something else that is important to note here before we proceed further is that human beings are emotional. Trying to remove that element completely in any sort of analysis is pure folly. We are not Spock. You can pretend you are but then you would be a liar--as are many of my commenters who claim to rational and logical but then say things like

I'd ask if you've been sippin' the stupid juice, but it's more like you've been gulpin' it.

Comments like these are a daily occurrence here. I have no problem with people saying any of this stuff. Where I have a problem is with the hypocrisy. Emotions enter in to who we are as people and how we make decisions every day. These emotions arise from interactions with other people (such as in the comments sections of a blog) and they fill in the blank slate of who we are and who we become. They CHANGE us. You may have the conceit that by posting on a libertarian blog that you are sharing your rugged individualism with others but you are, in fact, interacting with people in a symbolic way which alters your behavior. This is a collective influence not an individual one. 

The main reason why I mention emotions,though, is what arises out of them: desire. We desire to fit in and function in our society and when we don't, we experience anomie or normlessness. We've all had the experience of seeing a McDonald's ad on television and then being hungry for a cheeseburger. I've even gone out and bought one before. On a very low level, this is operant conditioning. Desire, however, comes from repeated interaction with the people and institutions in our lives and that is much more powerful.

So, we are not a culture of islands. When we interact with our family, our peer group, our community, our schools, and the mass media (the five main areas of socialization), we behave in certain and distinct ways as a result of those interactions. There is no doubt in my mind that this was the case with Jared Loughner, the shooter in the Arizona Safeway massacre. His interactions with these five areas made him who he is today. Nikto spoke of this in his post yesterday. Somewhere along the line Jared's blank slate was filled in with socialization that led him to believe that shooting people was perfectly acceptable. Time and again we see examples like this and it illustrates a very key failure of the right wing and libertarian philosophy.: People don't operate in a vacuum. Of course, it would be wrong to say that personal responsibility shouldn't be considered at all. It's equally as wrong to say, however, that Jared's interactions played no part at all in what he did and it's just his individual fault. It's both.

There was a time when the first four of these areas were more significant. These smaller spheres had a great deal of influence on filling in the blank slate. Today, however, the mass media is the most significant and its influence has become so overwhelming in defining our culture and our interactions with the people in our family, peer groups, community and schools that, as an instructor, I can't even come close to competing with it. We have been socialized by the mass media to be ADD and want that "bright, shiny object." This brings us back to Mike.

The people that are parents today grew up seeing Mike hawk cars, clothes, soft drinks and shoes. This is how they have seen success defined: extrinsically. Hawking these items has been around forever but not at such a monumentally high level as when Mike showed up. Because of this Niagara Falls type inundation, this is how they raise their children. They have turned them into consumer drones giving in completely to the emotion of envy...of wanting to have the latest thing to make their lives happier. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but generally parents today and even some people in the mid 20s who aren't parents have been conditioned to believe that Michael Jordan is the pure embodiment of success and that our lives should be patterned after him. Mike is a shining example of the fact that the first four areas of socialization have all succumbed to this model of achievement and have altered their function within our culture.

We have, I fear, been changed for the worse because of this.

Parents now raise their children to be superstar athletes and adjust their lifestyles accordingly. Take the example of hockey in my state of Minnesota. It is played year round here starting at the age of 3. It costs thousands of dollars to play and if you were a kid who just wanted to play for fun, you can pretty much forget it. There are practices 4-5 nights a week with games on the other nights. These games are just as competitive and important to parents as the NHL. Fights break out often in the stands. We see them on the news and I see them all the time. Hockey is only one example. This rigorous level is seen in virtually all other sports.

Sadly, this mindset is so consuming that parents are, what I call, COP...Checked Out Parents. Their desire to have the "bright, shiny object" is so overwhelming that their involvement in socializing their kids is often non-existent. And it's not just because of sports as we will see shortly.

Peer groups have become part of the chain as well. If you don't play a sport, you are either "gay" or "retarded." From this we have seen the rise of increased competition in a variety of other sports like swimming and Ultimate Frisbee-a game that used to not have any refs. Everyone has to play a sport so they can be like Mike. Teens geek out on Facebook and YouTube to sports related activities which is pretty much everything now. My favorite bands from the UK are all massive Premier League fans...living and dying with a sport that encourages and rewards mediocrity.

It's important to note here that this mentality goes beyond sports. Sports is merely a spring board into the material and consumer based mentality that has permeated every level of our age cohorts, our peer groups, and, thus, into our families. To be cool, you have to be consumed by some or several areas of media. If it weren't for Harry Potter or Twilight, I have to wonder if young people would event talk about books at all! Even Harry Potter is like Mike...clothes, shoes, soft drinks...

Communities gear their city operations around sports due to the increased demand. Gyms open at 5am for practice and some games don't start until 9pm due to such high demand. A community is more attractive if they have 2-3 hockey rinks. Basketball training facilities have popped up around my town in the last few years so kids can play year round. Their goal? To be like Mike...cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks.

Perhaps the worst culprit are the schools. Sports has always been important in schools but today it is their culture. Want a kid to do his work in class? Show him or her you know something about sports. Then you're cool and they will get it done. And why are they cool? Cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks...all things we have been trained to envy, desire, and believe we will get...so we have been told and shown by the Michael Jordan Generation which essentially runs our country. As I have stated above, this model carries over into other areas besides sports. Honestly, it's all aspects of the mass media working on steroid overdrive to sell, sell sell! And one is not a complete person unless one has these things.

I can't compete with that. I can show them things that I think are cool like how our government operates or the history of our country. I can try to connect them with things they like today (which are all consumer driven) but it's mostly futile. It's not what I say, it's what they see. I had a student tell me the other day that he was going to be LeBron. I pointed out the percentages of that happening and he would have none of it. The MJG has told him otherwise. Big house filled with riches....cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks...

Again, I must confess that I am as much of a sports maniac as all of them. I play and coach tennis. I do like to win. I am emotionally down for a day or two after a Vikings loss which, after this season, was quite a bit. But I don't have those glassy eyes of a fucking zombie and the seemingly never ending desire to raise my children in a pro athlete style. My children play sports but I teach them that they are a part of life, not a lifestyle. Most Americans want a lifestyle and they are too lazy and impatient to have a life. Life is about learning a variety of skills that will help you earn a living and contribute to the community where you live. Most parents do not teach their children this and it's because they believe in the bill of goods that has been sold to them by the mass media. It will somehow happen instantly if you...just buy this pair of shoes...like Mike's shoes...

My favorite line from Inside Job comes from Andrew Sheng, a Chinese economic advisor. "Engineers build bridges...Financial advisors build dreams. And when those dreams become nightmares..."

That first line really made me think. What do we build these days? This is the fundamental difference between our country and China. They are building things...making things...and we really aren't. We desire a lifestyle filled with leisure and, thus, people make shit loads of money off of services in this country.  I have a friend who used to be in the NBA that owns one of those basketball gyms. What exactly is he offering society? There are businesses in China that are building machines to make solar power an efficient alternative to coal and oil. People around the world are buying this technology. How can the global market "buy" a training session from a former NBA player? Why would they even want to? Why is having this training so important to have in America? They can pretend for an hour or two that they are Mike. Cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks....ironically, most made now in other countries!

I've been asked several times on this blog to point to ways private corporations and the wealthy people that run them are in control of our lives and directly harm us on purpose in the name of profit. I've offered some small and specific examples but they were mere threads in one giant quilt. The answer to these continued questions is much larger than some of the small examples I have mentioned.

Sit back and think about what I have written regarding the mass media's victory over the other four areas of socialization. Think about how they permeate every aspect of our lives now. Imagine what our culture was like before Michael Jordan (car, clothes, shoes, soft drink) and what it's like now. On a systemic level, it has, I fear, been irrevocably changed.

Now, ask yourselves....

Who owns the mass media?

Holiday Dinner Conversation

There's been a lot of discussion about whether the unremitting hate-filled vitriol from the right had anything to do with the shooting of Gabby Giffords in Arizona. It's pretty clear it has. For example...

I was having dinner on Christmas with my family: my wife, my father, mother, three of my sisters, two brothers-in-law, one brother-in-law's mother, and three grandchildren.

We had already had the annual argument on Thanksgiving, so politics was not under discussion. But my father was taking advantage of my brother-in-law's fast Internet connection by watching a Lou Dobbs video. I'm not sure why; Dobbs is making an all-out effort to state that he thinks the illegals are the only rational actors in this mess. Whereas my father thinks illegals should be shot on sight.

Anyway, during dinner my father took the opportunity (again) to crow about the Burma Shave style signs he had put along the highway that took Obama's comment about the United States no longer being a just Christian nation out of context.

Which prompted my nine-year-old nephew to excitedly chime in: "We should put up a sign charging ten dollars to shoot Obama."

For a moment everyone was quiet. Then my sister said, in a very careful and considered tone, "No, sweetie, we don't say things like that. Nobody should shoot anybody."

No one said another thing about it. But everyone knew exactly where this was coming from. My brother-in-law is a birther. He rejects all the evidence that Obama was born in the United States, insists that the birth certificate that has been validated by many observers is false, and so on.

So, is my brother-in-law talking about assassinating the president in front of his third-grade son? I don't know. Maybe the kid came up with this idea all by himself.

But my brother-in-law says that it's "his opinion" that Obama is not an American. Since Obama's mother was an American, nothing else matters -- Obama is an American. End of story. My brother-in-law might as well be saying, "It's my opinion that the sun circles the earth."

What the right calls their "opinions" are quite frequently "delusions." And these delusions are getting increasingly dangerous and violent.

When millions of Americans like my brother-in-law and father prefer to believe the lie that the president has absolutely no right to serve, that there is a vast conspiracy to put an anti-Colonial Kenyan at the top of the US government, it provides the basis for the less balanced to commit murder. This is exactly how the Fort Hood shooter was incited to go on the same sort of shooting rampage. We call him a Muslim terrorist, but he was clearly unhinged and deluded; how is Loughner any different?

Little kids do not always grow up to share their parents' prejudices, opinions and delusions. I share none of my father's hatred of illegal immigrants. My sister married a Mexican-American man, and my father disowned her for it. He's probably spoken to her just once in the last 18 years. But two of my sisters married guys who tell the same racist jokes that my dad does.

So it makes me wonder. What did Randy Loughner, Jared's dad, say in front of his son while he was growing up? Did he talk about "second-amendment remedies" in front of his son? Or is he just as crushed by this as most of us are?

Kids learn what is "normal" by observing their parents and peers. The current political environment is toxic and disgusting to most adults. Think about what it's doing to the kids.

Reflections On The Weekend

Much of my emotion regarding the shooting in Arizona is tied to Christina Green, a 9 year old girl who was one of the victims in the assassination attempt of Gabrielle Giffords. Christina was born on September 11, 2001 and had just been elected to student council. A neighbor thought it would be fun if Christina met Rep. Giffords so that is how she ended up at the Safeway. And now she is dead.

I have children so the empathy that I have for her parents cannot be put into words. As an educator, though, this hit me on another level that still leaves me gutted today. No doubt, it will stay with me forever. I encourage children like Christina every day to get involved in politics and make their voice heard regardless of their opinions. What will my message be now? I've avoided the likes of the partisan news networks for the most part but to do so now would be irresponsible. To ignore the very clear danger that I see coming from people like Glenn Beck would be catastrophic. People have said that I am trying to score political points. I am not. I am saying that same thing that Congresswoman Giffords said in March of 2010.

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action."

Consequences indeed. And not just in this case. Bart Stupak resigned over these voice mails. Raul Grijalva's office in Arizona was attacked last fall. There were other events as well. 

Better yet, though, take the example of Charles Wilson. He was recently jailed in Washington State for threatening the life of Senator Pat Murray over the passage of the health care bill. From Timothy Egan's recent Times column. 

Prosecutors here in Washington State told me that the man convicted of making the threats was using language that, in some cases, came word-for-word from Glenn Beck, the Fox demagogue. Every afternoon Charles A. Wilson would sit in his living room and stuff his head with Beck, a man who spouts scary nonsense to millions. Of course, Beck didn’t make the threats or urge his followers to do so.

But it was Beck who said “the war is just beginning,” after the health care bill was passed. And it was Beck who re-introduced the paranoid and racist rants of a 1950s-era John Birch Society supporter, W. Cleon Skousen, who said a one-world government cabal was plotting a takeover

In the case of Jared Loughner, we also have an anti government type who personalized his anger in the from of Congresswoman Giffords. Her "personal slight" towards him by responding to a question in Spanish set him on his path to that Safeway last Saturday. It is my contention that someone as clearly mentally disturbed as Loughner was enabled by what passes for normal discourse from the likes of people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. By saying crazy shit, it makes the crazies feel like they are right at home.

So what do I want to see happen? This.

The best thing for Sarah Palin to do at this point (and, quite frankly, if she were to do this I'd just about fall on the floor in shock and surprise) would be to issue a statement fessing up to the misguided and inflammatory gun imagery that she has used in political contexts, promise to refrain from doing so in the future, and shut the fuck up for awhile, out of respect for the victims of this senseless tragedy.

Thankfully, I think we are going to see that. Palin may not be as forthright as this but she may not have a choice. This is one of those events that will leave a deep mark on our country for a long time. To use crosshairs, wish for the death or torture of Democrats, or spout any sort of violent, anti government nonsense is going to be met with disgust.

It's absolutely disgusting that it took the death of Christina Green and the other victims to make it happen.

Quite Prophetic

Some Photos and a Comment

"Don't retreat, RELOAD"---Sarah Palin via Twitter.

More Quotes

I'm going to delay Nikto's post for a little bit and continue with some quotes regarding the AZ shooting.

"The majority of citizens in the United States of America have never read the United States of America's Constitution. You don't have to accept the federalist laws. In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications: the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar. No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver! No! I won't trust in god!

Nonetheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

These are quotes from Jared Loughner, the suspect in the shooting in Arizona. It sounds awfully familiar to me.

People have already starting bitching that I have made this political...blah blah blah. I'm really sick and tired of these same people deflecting responsibility for starting all of this. If some angry left winger had attacked Sarah Palin, I would seriously question how responsible I was in continuing to foment that mindset. Apparently, this has been lost on Alex Jones.

"Toning Down the Rhetoric Means Obeying Big Government."

This came up in comments...I think people on the right need to own up to the same path the left took in the 1960s and 1970s. The idealistic radicals at that time turned violent and were clearly wrong in what they did. We are seeing the same thing today...idealism of the right is turning violent. This is not the first incident although it is certainly the most violent. The guy on his way to blow up the Tides Foundation was inspired by Glenn Beck We've seen several incidents like this in the last two years including several in Arizona with other Congress people. The simple fact is that the left doesn't do this anymore. The right does now.

Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo had this to say last night on MSNBC.

"When there is a virus it always attacks the weak and elderly first. The anger and hate out there in cable news, talk radio, and the blogsphere has become like this virus and Loughner, a mentally ill person, is the weak and infirm elderly person who has succumbed to it."

Indeed.

Meanwhile, they are still looking for that second person. I wonder what that bit of the story will bring?

Oh, and our new Speaker of the House had this to say regarding the shooting.

"An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society."

Does that include the list of people below, Mr. Boehner?

Consequences

"I'll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo -- every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress." (Sean Hannity)

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus -- living fossils -- so we will never forget what these people stood for." (Rush Limbaugh)

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building." (Ann Coulter)

“I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victims.” - (Glenn Beck)

"To fight only the al-Qaeda scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders ... Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that's who." (Michael Savage)

"We are past the time for reasoned discourse" (said several times on The Smallest Minority by various posters and the site owner himself)

It's not legal to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. And the theater is currently filled with a lot of pissed off and paranoid wingnuts.

A Complete Disgrace

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Gabrielle Giffords (US Rep, D) said in an interview with MSNBC.

United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D) has just been shot in the head by Jared Loughner, a "pot smoking loner who wanted to make new US currency." He also complained about the illiteracy rate in his district (translation: I don't like Spics). Take a look at the photo (left) from his MySpace page. Look familiar at all? Second amendment remedies indeed.

Giffords was the lucky one. The death toll included a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge, and a staffer for the Democratic congresswoman. Giffords's office was also vandalized repeatedly during the health care debate.

But I guess I'm just reaching, right? There's no way in hell that anyone would take Palin's crosshairs seriously. People in this country are much better than that, aren't they?

What a great place Arizona must be these days. Papers please, Jew...fuck you and your transplant (the subject of Nikto's post tomorrow)...and a nine year old girl dead. What a disgrace.

Front Loading

Nikto has a post going up tomorrow that needs a little front loading. And it just so happens that it's also a "voice inside my head."

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." –-Sarah Palin, in a message posted on Facebook about Obama's health care plan, Aug. 7, 2009

Nikto will be explaining how this is an outright lie. For today, though, we can take note of yet another leader of the conservative movement demonstrating a monumental lack of responsibility. More importantly, this is not a voice inside of my head. She said this. Millions of people believed her....so much so that our health care legislation did not contain a public option.

We see comments like this come every day from major conservative leaders. They are more outlandish with the fear peddling every day. I can promise all of you that if they stop making comments like this, I'll stop having arguments with "the voices inside my head."

Voices "In My Head"

So, we'll try again, because ALL of you lamebrain lefties could really learn something if you would simply read it (repeatedly if necessary).
----juris imprudent in comments.

Democrats should “stay home on Election Day… for the sake of the nation.”

----Sean Hannity, Oct 19, 2006.

"Good for you, you have a heart, you can be a liberal. Now, couple your heart with your brain, and you can be a conservative."

----Glenn Beck, Oct 5, 2006.

Believing

I'm wondering what would happen if someone told me something on here and my response was, "I don't believe that." Apparently, it's just fine though if the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner says it.

The CBO just released a report that details how the House's new health care repeal law will add 230 billion dollars to the deficit by 2021. From 2012 to 2019 it would add 145 billion dollars to an already mammoth deficit. Boehner's response?

“I do not believe that repealing the job- killing health-care bill is going to increase the deficit.”

So, he doesn't believe it, hmm? I guess it's OK now to believe whatever we want. I guess that also means that he doesn't "believe" the CBO's other report that says the health care bill will actually reduce the deficit. Of course it can't work. That would mean (gasp!) they would....WIN! Waaaaaaah!!!!

I'm trying to figure out why they are going for repeal first. Didn't they get the memo about unemployment? Of course, they are really screwed there because their ideology is at loggerheads with itself. They got elected because the people of this country thought the Democrats were doing a crappy job at helping them get jobs so it was the GOP's turn. But the GOP wants the government to get out of the way so.....what now? Oh, yeah, cut taxes...cut spending and everything will be fine.

Belief is a wonderful thing.

Not in Control

I had a discussion with a commenter on this blog (who shall remain anonymous unless he/she chooses to come forward) in person at a local pub.

"Tell me again how I'm not in control of myself," she/he stated.

"Well, you are a smoker," I replied.

"Yeah, that's right. I'm addicted."

"So....you aren't in control of yourself. The nicotine is."

"I could quit but I choose not to because I'm addicted."

"But doesn't that mean that you are not in control of yourself?"

"No."

"But what about Jeffery Wigand," I asked, "the guy who came forward and said that Brown and Williamson (now merged with RJ Reynolds) manipulated the nicotine and the ingredients in tobacco to make the cigarette more addictive? Isn't that a great example (like the PG&E one I had given earlier) of a private corporation purposefully doing harm to people in order to control them into spending more money? Making more profit?

"But it's my choice. I can quit if I decide," she/he replied.

"But I thought you said you were addicted."

And so it went from there without any resolution.

It may have been his/her choice to continue to smoke but becoming more addicted was the choice of Brown and Willamson. They controlled millions of smokers by manipulating the contents of cigarettes. Having control was made more and more difficult due to the desire for more profit.

Wigand, incidentally, works with governments around the world to regulate tobacco on stricter control policies. I'd guess he's not getting much done here these days with the general sentiment in our country. Know which sentiment I am talking about?

It's the same one that thinks we tell the government to get out of the way and watch the free market take off. A tobacco company's dream!

Voices in My Head

In this post and the one below it, you will notice a new tag that we will be seeing from time to time. "Voices Inside My Head" refers to a few of my readers who are under the mistaken impression that conservatives/ libertarians don't actually say the things they say and that I make it all up due to voices in my head. Or a straw man argument. Or some other logical fallacy. Or maybe it's bad chili. I can never keep it straight.

"Who are you going to believe?" they ask," me or your lyin' ears?" Well, the answer is my lyin' ears because, starting today, you will be able to click on the tag and see all the posts with direct quotes from those very same conservatives and libertarians. Some may be in politics, some may be my family, and some will be pulled from comments...like this one.

We aren't as gullible as the Democratic base who sop up stupid as a rule.

This was written by 6Kings in comments in a ROTFLMFAO attempt to prove that Nikto's comment about how change, to the Right, is like Kryptonite. Hmm....

So, enjoy the "Voices Inside My Head" as it will be sticking around for awhile.

Relax.

To many of you, this image is a soothing as the softs sounds of the ocean as it gently laps up on the shore a mere 100 feet from your bungalow on the beach.

"That bitch in the House," as my uncle Bill so fondly put it on several occasions, has finally been deposed. The Wicked Witch of the West has been sent packing, folks, and a MAN is back in charge again. No more vaginas telling us what we can and can't do...praise the Lord!

And John Boehner is not just any man. He has name that sticks out loud and proud. It's a hard fucking cock that won't let anyone mess with it. Best of all, it's white just like its owner.

So have no fear, old white men of America, there's finally someone to stop that "anti colonial Kenyan" (© Newt Gingrich) in the White House. Actually, what am I saying? There's always someone to be afraid of, right?

It is the federal government after all...

Completely Agree

"We can recognize the extraordinary character of the Founding Fathers while also knowing that those 18th-century political leaders were not outside history. . . . They were as enmeshed in historical circumstances as we are, they had no special divine insight into politics, and their thinking was certainly not free of passion, ignorance, and foolishness."

---Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary historian, Pulitzer prise winning author and Brown University Professor.

New Year's Housekeeping

As we begin the New Year here at Notes From the Front, I thought it might be wise to throw out a few housekeeping items.

First, this blog is not important. Seriously, I mean it. Lately I've noticed a few commenters that seem to have substituted the comments section for a social life. Living your life and interacting with people is more important than posting here. If you don't have time to write all that you want, so what? I know I don't.That means your time is better spent doing things with friends and family than posting on this sixth rate (seventh rate?) blog. I put up a post every day but some are now from Nikto because I have other stuff going on.

This brings me to my second point. I think it's time that I reminded people why I post here. I do so because I love to write. It helps me work out my frustrations. It's also a heck of a lot of fun. I think it's pretty amusing that some of you feel that I am humiliated continually when I post here but I never am. Not at all. I have a pretty thick skin and school yard bullying, which we see all the time in comments, doesn't even come close to making a dent. A few weeks back I was working with some junior high school kids and had one student slice another student in the face with a scissors. Having someone call me stupid is pretty paltry compared to that.

My other main goal is for reflection and critical thinking. We've recently had a concise definition of critical thinking submitted in comments. Here it is again.

The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal.

I suspect I will be putting this up quite a bit as several of you are avoiding it. I'd like to see each one of you turn inward and honestly assess how well you match up this ideal. This would be the reflection part. You should know that every time...every single time...some of the commenters here blow a bowel about something I write, there is no doubt in my mind it's because they are resistant to reflection.

Something else...I had a regular commenter in here (a libertarian one, btw) make a note to me regarding staying on topic in comments. If this person wishes to state this with his name attached, that's fine but I thought I would let them remain anonymous for now. Essentially, said person complained that we whir off topic in threads and it would be nice to stick to the subject. I thought about it for awhile because I really do respect (and love) the person that suggested it but it's just not my vision for this blog.

Comments to me are about near total freedom. I post about climate change and you want to link a video about Obama as Hitler? Fine by me. You have a business or product you want to hawk and you are a regular poster here? Put it up. I have about 200-300 unique page loads a day. Talk about anything on your mind. This blog is an outlet for reflection, venting, and discussion on a wide range of topics. I live in Minnesota and have had it up to here (Mark puts his hand way above his head) with people telling me to be polite and not discuss certain topics. Fuck that. That's why ALL of you get the same honor and privilege. It's my way of telling my fellow Minnesotans to pound salt hence the byline above, "Where politics, sex and religion are always polite to discuss."

Of course, if everyone wants to stay on topic, then that's fine too. I will, however, generally delete spam comments if it is from a source I don't recognize. If it turns out to be someone we know, I will put it back up. Porn is also usually out unless it stars one of you and/or it's really hot.

One last thing about comments....sometimes Blogger is wonky. Since everyone seems to have a different experience with this, more than likely it's the relationship between individual settings and Blogger. Remember to cut and paste your comment off line and then if it vanishes, try again. As I have stated above, I don't block any one's comments or delete them.

So what will the New Year bring? Well, we already have the GOP putting health care repeal front and center. That's smart....NOT. I know climate change is going to come up a few times. We should have some GOP hopefuls for president soon. I predict Mitt Romney will be the nominee if he runs.

More importantly, though, we will have the start of a conversation that I hope will change this blog forever. It's the evolution of many of my thoughts that I have been putting up here since I started. It's why our country is so fucked up. It has to do with what I have been dropping here and there of late: The Michael Jordan Generation.

Stay tuned!