tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113047592024-03-12T19:51:46.789-04:00the Gun-Toting Liberal"I can teach a monkey to wave an American flag. This does not mean the monkey is patriotic." - Scott RitterUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger199125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-39710564060929584372011-12-02T21:30:00.014-05:002011-12-02T22:20:04.139-05:00The GTL Goes Around and Around With a Better Class of Right-Wing Folks. Cleaning Gingrich's Floors.Responding to an Internet link posted by a right-leaning acquaintance. A new iteration of the ever-present, angry story of the uber-fertile minority mother, pumping fifteen brown welfare babies chock-a-block into the loving bosom of the taxpayer's bank account, the images of which I won't bother to show you... this comes from a very lively exchange with a bunch of well-educated folks on several sides of important issues, who invited me to join them. They are smart and kind, and debate fairly without the kind of sick cruelty the R. Brothers used to engage yours truly in before we immolated in a fricazee of death threats (by them) and de-friending...<br /><br />A note on the text: My words from the facebook stream are in <span style="font-weight:bold;">bold type</span>. Responses are <span style="font-style:italic;">italicized</span>. You will also meet CARSON, BILL and TREY, some new worthy and kind friends.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">She could squeeze out another newborn entitlement welfare nightmare baby every 9.1 months for the rest of her fertile days and not do as much damage to our society as one CEO can do in one minute through one unscrupulous underhanded one-minute deal over the phone.<br /><br />It wasn't poor mamas, or teachers' unions for that matter, that brought the world's greatest economy to the edge of collapse.<br /><br />It's fun to puff about personal responsibility - and what sane worker is NOT for personal responsibility, BTW?! - get red in the face, et cetera, but the real theft, the REAL sacrilege to the social contract, is not lazy poor people fucking. It's rich corporations fucking US. </span><br /><br />Many comments down, the Right-leaners were still carping about personal responsibility, conveniently ignoring the moral failings of people with ivy-league cred and expensive lawyers... so this from earlier this evening:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Hey baby, I'm a social worker. NONE of you know these people the way I do and I'll put my juice against yours on this any fucking day of the WEEK! I have EARNED the right to talk about welfare cheats and baby-making illiterates and so forth from first hand knowledge. I taught junior high and high school in Brooklyn, and went to those same schools too. I work in a DMH (Department of Mental Health) mental health center. I don't need anecdotes on the internet, I have actual patients to conjure up visually. Saw some today, in fact, and lots more next week too, and every week after that.<br /><br />I'm here to tell you that the vast, vast majority of people on any form of government entitlement payments are TRULY miserable and poor, not faking it when they are judged unfit to be hired mostly through no fault of their own, and sick to the point of almost utter uselessness to any "free market."<br /><br />Our society needs to be just and equitable, and use the carrot as well as the stick to eradicate the problems of intractable degradation and self-destruction.<br /><br />There is no organism in nature that exists in a social community wherein the weak exploit the strong; not in nature and not in society. Ever. The strong always prey on the weak. The American experiment was supposed to end that, not perpetuate it under the hoary mantle of "freedom." To suggest otherwise is to dwell in some parallel universe.<br /><br />Only a eugenicist would say, "sterilize 'em. Fuck 'em. They're a blight on society and should be eradicated, and to throw a nickel at them will only encourage them." Only Ayn Rand would bust out that social Darwinist bullshit. Most reasonable people would keep them out of the gutter, and likely hold their nose while recognizing that a sane society does not engage in survival-of-the-fittest policies the way feudal Europe did.<br /><br />Entitlement IS A PROBLEM, BILL! We know this! I agree with you!<br /><br />But the epistemological, ontological, and ideological thrust of the Right is NOT the path to solving problems. It just feels good! Of course baby woman should be better-behaved. but the penny it takes to keep the social safety net underneath her from unraveling is just that, a penny. The real theft is in the billions and now the trillions, and even if you cut off every brown skinned poor person at the thorax and lopped off every testicle borne by yon unwashed of the masses, you would achieve nothing.<br /><br />Because systemic problems created from the top down cannot be corrected by tightening belts from the bottom up. Besides, it takes a great amount of cruelty to make the people behave. Not even Moses himself could do it.<br /><br />Breathe, Dave...<br /><br />Anyway, from the heart of Brooklyn to the bag of shitty townie shake we know as Lowell, I say... mad love cats and kitties. I remain, ever yours,<br /><br />the Gun-Toting Liberal. </span><br /><br />Then a very gratifying response:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Carson Cashman: I think that was the best post I have ever read in this group. </span><br /><br />Followed by more praise:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Trey Stahl: I'm here to tell you that the vast, vast majority of people on any form of government entitlement payments are TRULY miserable and poor, not faking it when they are judged unfit to be hired mostly through no fault of their own, and sick to the point of almost utter uselessness to any "free market."..........this is what I really liked.... </span><br /><br />And then a thoughtful Libertarian response:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Bill Stahl: David W*******, You and I, I being a Conservative with a libertarian bent, and you apparently a liberal, agree on a hell of a lot more than many here would consider possible. I think, as you have stated, we do have a case of the strong preying on the weak. The strong being the politicians that play the class warfare card, using the poor as a lever to pray in the weak, the unsophisticated but sympathetic tax payers and voters.<br /><br />In my opinion there are as many right wingers as left wingers that would help the helpless. The issue that should be debated is: what is the best way to provide the help. The left insists on couching the debate as a struggle between good and evil, when it is should be a debate over the best way of doing good for the most people. </span><br /><br />And finally, my characteristically histrionic though lovable and intellectually cohesive response (ain't I the humblest, O my loved ones?):<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Bill, you and I can hang. But if you ask me, the class warfare waged by the powerful and rich since their grinning simpleton goon Ronald Reagan put us all into a torpor of nostalgia, jingoism, fag-hating and red-baiting, is most definitely, objectively, intentional. Old man Bush called it Voodoo until he realized he could get it over the finish line and make out like a bandit. Oh, he shut up then, yes he DID! He was incredulous that Reagan could loot the treasury and tilt the tax code down on the rest of us and we'd thank him and wait for the gold to "trickle down." And then, when the only thing trickling down on us was rancid ideological urine from Reagan's wilted piss-bag, they simply bullied us with the same old shibboleths, blamed it on the poor and the gays and the Commies, and whammo! back to sleep we all WENT.<br /><br />To corrupt what was once a healthy economic and civil society, to steal from the middle and bottom to feed the gluttonous top, may not seem evil to you, but you'd probably agree it isn't very nice.<br /><br />And at the end of the day, I reject the crowd who want to turn that miserable, dead-souled, emotionally crippled fraud Ayn Rand into some kind of Mother Theresa of self-determination. Survival of the fittest works in nature evolving balanced ecosystems over eons; in day-to-day practice on the human scale, the apotheosis of Randian evolution would be a ruthless drug cartel. Or the Kennedy family. But then, I repeat myself. <br /><br />No, Bill, as a Liberal I do not see the debate in terms of good versus evil - that's the religious Right's job. I see it as a puzzlement of civics. The Right, as I understand it, would prefer that the homeless and hungry come to the church door humbly and beg. They believe that large economic and socio-political forces don't actually exist. They believe there is only the steely-eyed, self-disciplined, self-actualizing winner and the inferior, handout-seeking loser. No one was ever a victim of circumstance.<br /><br />Now, my good friend and future Jaeger-buddy, you know that's hogwash. There is no man lazier or more shiftless than the inheritor of enormous wealth.<br /><br />The mouths on the Right tell us society as an institution, and they themselves as individuals, should not be forced to care for those who cannot or will not care for themselves and their own. But they ignore the tilted playing field. When every ball magically rolls unassisted into their opponent's net, and the referee's been paid off besides, and he went to their prep school and looks like the grinning face that greets them each day in the mirror, they are blind, blind to their own advantage.<br /><br />It's not about good or evil. It's about justice, fairness, and an equal journey to the starting line. Make everyone start equal and I don't give a damn who wins. But we're nowhere near that mythical starting line and never were.<br /><br />Take for example capital punishment: if you have the capital, you don't get the punishment. We Lefties has a problem with that. The Right replies, "take a bath." I'd rather stink than smell like hypocrite ass.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong; many of my Right-Wing and religious friends give a lot of time and money to worthy charitable causes which it would be foolish not to support and praise, simply on ideological grounds.<br /><br />But my perspective is that a healthy society does not make people abandon their self-respect and beg at the door of a private institution to have their basic human rights met. When Newt Gingrich says poor children should clean the floors beneath the feet of their better-off schoolmates in exchange for basic survival and an education, he is blind to the cruelty to the human soul such a corrosive arrangement creates. It is nothing new, this moral lecturing by the corrupt and corpulent, this idea that the poor must clean for them and beg them and politely refrain from bothering them. Oh, and also, please, don't kill them in their sleep and drive off in their Lexuses.<br /><br />This attitude of self-congratulatory self-delusion by the fabulously well-to-do is not new. It existed for thousands of years, it persisted until the United States, praise be to the People in their wisdom, and to the glorious God that is rumored to exist, put an end to it. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-16561349630452225642011-09-18T12:27:00.008-04:002011-09-18T13:00:22.281-04:00Response to a Death Threat on Facebook. Open Letter to a Tea Party American.<span style="font-style:italic;">The R****** brothers, with whom I spar about politics on facebook, have stepped over the line and engaged in death threats. During a conversation about his belief in the upcoming total collapse of the economy, M***, threatened that he would "shoot [me] to kill, and hang [my] body from the porch." (That's a paraphrase; I went looking for the comment a moment ago and find that either it is mysteriously missing - or that facebook sucks. Either is possible).</span><br /><br />Vanessa, a mutual friend who is both reasonable and generous, but agrees with the R****** brothers on every point of our debates, attempted to restore harmony, and apologized for any disrespect she showed me as an unapologetic progressive. Here is my response:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I'm not one-sided, and that's where I think you've lumped me in with the "problem crowd of Liberals." <br /><br />But the immediate issue is the contempt and pathological rage the R***** brothers are expressing toward me. If you think their behavior has been as reasonable, courteous, civil and appropriate as mine, fine, we'll agree to disagree and go our separate ways. But there is no evidence to support that conclusion except naked bias - IT IS NOT OK TO THREATEN MURDER. The "us" versus "them" trend runs deep in them. It is not the noblest aspect of human character. It is, in fact, dangerous.</span><br /><br />As I continued to explain my point of view, it began to gradually emerge as a general statement of my beliefs about government. Here is the conclusion of my post to Vanessa, which I will consider an Open Letter to all who identify with the political platform of the so-called "Tea Party":<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Dear Tea Party Member:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I work very hard and loathe the idea of useless, sponging people abusing the social safety net probably more than you do. Every time a person collects disability when he should and could be working, the needs of the truly deserving disabled person are corrupted by association, and that pisses me off to the nth degree. <br /><br />I also despise useless, sponging people abusing and corrupting the markets as well. In fact, I like personal responsibility for the healthy and firm, and collective responsibility for the helpless and sick. I like to see work rewarded, and workers motivated by potential rewards.<br /><br />Private property, including vast wealth, is among others an American right worth fighting for. I am no Communist. I dig money and nice things, too. But we can't keep our hard-earned or inherited wealth unless we also use a portion of it to provide everyone with a real avenue for advancement. This protects not only the poor from poverty, and the middle class from bearing the burden of the poor, but the rich from the guillotine and the garotte. <br /><br />Justice, equality, and the equal opportunity to strive and succeed have never happened on their own in <span style="font-style:italic;">any</span> society, and must be protected by the collective will of the people. In America we call that collective will the federal government. The rights and privileges of citizenship here are not granted by God or the wealthy, but by the people themselves. The founding fathers were the elites of their day and they wrote this miraculous document that essentially dis-invested them from absolute power and shared it with the hoi-polloi. That had never happened anywhere - and we're at risk of losing it today. <br /><br />According to the political beliefs of the Tea Party, our entitlement programs are pernicious examples of Socialism ruining the freedom of our nation. I understand that you believe this, too. Fine. One can compromise with those beliefs and achieve something worthwhile. (I personally believe entitlements are not only NOT pernicious, but are in fact the rich's best friend, for the reasons above.) <br /><br />However, you do realize that your own definition of Socialism defines every wealthy nation on Earth today as a socialist nightmare. <br /><br />I love America, I love the Constitution, and when all segments of the economy act in more or less good faith, we have the healthy middle class the founders so clearly intended. I love our government. It is - when everyone respects it and compromises for the greater good - the least odious and most trustworthy government on Earth. In America, you don't have to pay a bribe to get a business license or a driver's license or to have your case heard in Court. In America, if I can prove my Mayor or State Assemblyman, my Senator or Congressman is on the take, I can challenge him in Court and he'll have to give up his power. <br /><br />That is a flat-out miracle which is contrary to "pure" capitalism and "free markets." After all, government is required to punish the bribe-taker. It is miraculous. Essential. American. <br /><br />Vanishing.<br /><br />The Tea Party groups prize freedom above all else, principally the freedom from grand federal social entitlement experiments, which in their opinion are unconstitutional. They want to return to the intentions of the founding fathers. But I don't believe the founding fathers would endorse the statement that "if the freedoms we are putting in place eventually result in the rich and powerful owning everything, including access to power and the electoral process - as in England - then we'll just have to endure that as an inevitable result of freedom."</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-89170210661175736592011-07-29T16:26:00.003-04:002011-07-29T20:43:58.815-04:00Old Fears Hurt Less. Brace Yourself for More Utopia (GOP Style).I dunno, I liked the GOP's old fears better. Commies, busing, flouridation, bra-less women, gays, Roe vs Wade, Medicare, weapons of mass destruction, firefighter unions, the United Nations, hordes of al qaeda lining up at the border of Mexico, fake birth certificates, Kenyan spies in the White House, Sharia Law in Colorado... <br /><br />I ask you, dear friend: what fun is a party of paranoid rage-aholics when they're yelling about debt-to-GDP ratios? <br /><br />None of these people <span style="font-style:italic;">ever </span>gave a damn about deficits until the line formed on the Right. Now, according to them, the deficit will kill us all unless we do exactly as they say, immediately.<br /><br />Been there, done that. There's always a lot to be afraid of, but you could make a nice living betting that the real crisis and the GOP-manufactured one will never be the same. Wonder what odds Jimmy the Greek would have given?<br /><br />Default on the debt will hurt us lots more than any other plan, including (obviously) more stimulus spending.<br /><br />How about this: we turn back the clock to when Bush inherited a surplus, undo things he said would lead to prosperity but brought us instead to the poorhouse, and start over. His illegal war in Iraq over weapons he said would kill us all, but didn't exist? Gone. His debunked "trickle down" tax policy? Pffft. A memory. His million-mile fence and hi-tech attack on fruit pickers? Suspended. His subsidies to Oil companies who already have more cash than they know what to do with? Gone. Kaput.<br /><br />This entire crisis is merely the beginning of the endgame of a long-established Right-Wing plan for society known as "Starve the Beast." Please look it up and learn. It is not a new crisis. It isn't even a crisis. It's Republican Utopia, once again breaching the horizon, heading our way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-5484249103295005992011-07-06T13:21:00.003-04:002011-07-06T13:24:38.283-04:00Thoughts from the GTL Manifesto (a work in progress), Part I.When you have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, it isn't "asking for help" or "relying on government to do what you should do for yourself." It is a free people banding together to solve problems which time and experience have shown not to be fixable by individuals. I could see reviling a monarchy, or a dictatorship, or an oligarchy, or a communist politburo -- but in America, to revile the government is to revile ourselves.<br /><br />If shameless capitalists have co-opted the government -which they have - that is all the more reason to get involved, vote sensibly, hold politicians accountable, and pay attention to the functioning of government not only in the US but around the world. Perfect it so that it runs efficiently and protects the citizens whose ancestors saw fit to fight and die to create it.<br /><br />There are bad governments, yes. But there are good ones too, and ones which are in trouble and need the help of the citizens. Many, many of our foremothers and forefathers died so that our government would live. If you want to shit on it, go ahead, but don't for a moment imagine that your opinion is either morally or intellectually superior. It is just an opinion, and many people equal to you in insight and intelligence do not agree with it.<br /><br />Forming a more perfect union requires people who care to make it better and are not lazy or cowardly, and not those like Grover Norquist, who famously declared he wants to starve the government of revenue, until it's been weakened enough to "drag it into the bathroom and drown it with [his] bare hands."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-56385056534201664202011-06-19T19:45:00.006-04:002011-06-19T20:44:44.345-04:00Welfare, Tea, and Laughs: My Sojourn At the Fringe Continues...Some friends of Tea Party temperament and I have been chatting up the Internets again, and one fellow in particular asks some damn fine questions:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">David W-------, u mentioned that u believe in the welfare clause [giving the federal government the authority to do practically anything]. If the founders had intended the Constitution to give the federal government all the powers that are implied in the liberal interpretation of the welfare clause, why did they specifically enumerate the powers delegated to the fed govt in Article 1 Section 8? Why bother enumerating and voicing specific powers when the fed govt already has the power to do whatever it wants because of the welfare clause? And why did the founders bother with a Tenth Amendment, if they meant the welfare clause to give the federal government carte blanche?<br /></span><br /><br />Here are my thoughts by way of a reply...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">All very good questions. And many generations of constitutional law students have debated them, with many more yet to do so - God willing.<br /><br />Perhaps the founders included the enormously broad welfare clause right up front in the Preamble because they meant to suggest that the general welfare actually IS paramount, and worthy of inclusion in the grandest statement of principles contained in the entire document, and not in the later details.<br /><br />They framers of the Constitution were not stupid and knew that debates such as this one would rage for generations as a result of its inclusion -- and yet, there it is. Right up front. You ask why the founders bothered with a Bill of Rights if the welfare clause indeed means what it says. I think you've got it backwards. Abraham Lincoln once said, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." The welfare clause reminds us of this fact. What good are separate powers, specifically enumerated, if the general welfare of the People goes unprotected?<br /><br />I admire your rhetorical skill in making my interpretation of the founding fathers' words seem naive, if not outright ridiculous. It is not ridiculous, however, to suggest that we as a nation have traditionally done a very good job of managing the tension between the elements of the Constitution that contradict, that push and pull against one another. We're not doing so now. We are in the age of the absolutists. Moderates and compromisers are in retreat, out of vogue.<br /><br />Yet most Americans CAN tell the difference between Canada and the former Soviet Union, for instance. Most people in America CAN discern a firefighter's union from a committee within the Politburo or the KGB. But some of the more heated folks on the Right seem to think that any nation that even attempts to provide robust social welfare services or labor protections is no different than a communist dictatorship a la Josef Stalin. The Tea Partiers are enamored of that rhetoric, as well as any that suggests the current president didn't win his office fair and square or is somehow not "legally" the president.<br /><br />The Tea Party, in other words, is entering its adolescence, and is feeling its oats, so to speak. They've only just begun to REALLY bring the funny. The Paranoid, Peeved, n' Peculiar are just getting started, so stay tuned for more and more hijinks. <br /><br />You know who I'm talking about -- they show up on the evening news, pulled over on the interstate for putting homemade cardboard "Live Free or Die" license plates on their cars, resisting arrest and running all up and down the shoulder calling themselves "sovereign citizens" who need not obey the law. They do other funny things, too, like demanding their change at the Piggly Wiggly in gold bullion, or wearing tricorner hats to political events, carrying signs with funny slogans like "Get Your Government Hands Off My Medicare."<br /><br />Talk with them a little, or their candidates, and you'll find that they have a host of very UN-funny ideas for improving government, mostly by killing it off or letting large parts of it die. They'll shut down the department of education, the federal student loan system, the environmental protection agency, they'll close public colleges and end social security. They'll cease funding for the arts and sciences, for international development, for medical research. Forget about federal disaster relief -- it's unconstitutional, like all the rest --; no federal protections for the disabled, for minority rights, either. Anti-American Commie plots all, just like the gold standard, and flouridated water.<br /><br />The Tea Party finds the answer to the needs of the People not in any serious treatise on public health, public finance, urban development, sociology, or any other scientific thing, but in the "enlightened self-interest" of Ayn Rand that says the best help you can give people is no help at all.<br /><br />I believe simply that power corrupts, and for that reason, in every system everywhere, the greatest threat of exploitation comes at the hands of those who hold the most power. The idea of American democracy is that no individual or organization is above the law, that ultimate power rests in the People - the leaders the People choose to represent them. From my point of view, the nation is at far greater threat from our electoral process being bought by the wealthy and powerful and corrupted so it no longer does the people's bidding than from the threat of too much government interference. <br /><br />I believe that it is not the Status Quo, with it's Medicare and minority rights and student loans and environmental protections, that is woefully out of step with Constitutional Principles, as the ideological Right would have me believe. Instead, it is those who suggest undoing generations of needed legislation that brought equality and prosperity to the vast middle class, who incorrectly identify their own government as the exploiters, rather than the billionaires who game the political system; these are the people who are out of step.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-833981411391181322011-03-27T13:06:00.008-04:002011-03-27T13:59:35.570-04:00If You Can't Be With The Nation You Love, Love The Intern You're With (or: Moral Lessons from the Newt Gingrich Traveling Hypocrisy Show)The more Gingrich talks, the more I like him. He's yet another Right-wing gift that keeps on giving. <br /><br />Remember a lifetime ago, when this patriotic genius tried to convince the world that, al Qaeda be damned, it was really plump, comely interns who were the real threat to our nation?<br /><br />Apparently, back in '92, when Newt set his sights on President Bill Clinton for impeachment, and started scouting for an issue or scandal upon which to hang his scheme, the bright idea came to him in a flash: infidelity and lies... if I'm unfit for office, maybe the President is, too! <br /><br />He set out, a lonely man on a grand fishing expedition, not to catch a nice big trout - an accomplishment that George W. Bush would later describe as his greatest moment as President - but to snare the popular young Man from Hope, his Southern rival for the affections of the nation, in a lie under oath. <br /><br />Since the man hadn't broken any laws (you mean he <span style="font-weight:bold;">didn't</span> kill Vince Foster with his bare hands and make it look like suicide?), and there would therefore be no juicy criminal case, the House GOP needed the kind of embarrassingly private civil suit that produces a lie or two about marital infidelities during a sworn deposition. That, and a sympathetic echo chamber to amplify the idea that a president who would tell such lies about a long-ended affair, under oath, during a non-criminal court case, is therefore capable of telling <span style="font-style:italic;">any </span>lies, capable of any heinous act of treason imaginable.<br /><br />"It's the principle of the thing," Gingrich intoned somberly, that forced him to act, to rescue our fragile rosebud nation from the dripping jaws of the big, bad, lustful wolf.<br /><br />It becomes clearer over time that he got the idea for all this from his own divorce cases, which required he give testimony about his infidelities under oath. Since Gingrich has no qualms about forgiving people (read: himself) for their infidelities, as long as they're related to the <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/27/gingrich-affairs-help/">"passion" of patriotism</a>, we can only conclude that his anger at Clinton only comes from jealousy. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">He was just sore at Bill Clinton for getting his hand in the White House cookie jar first!<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span><br /></span><br />I can't wait for this turd to run for President. November is very close to Christmas, and, for this moment in time at least, he is indeed the Gift That Keeps On Giving.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-20690968424054852392011-02-27T13:26:00.002-05:002011-02-27T13:30:55.882-05:00To the Republicans Who Would Throw My Family Out In The Street<span style="font-style:italic;">A commenter on a friend's facebook page describes my opinions as dishonest.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Don't talk to me about honesty. At this moment my family's very existence is being saved by unemployment insurance, a lifesaver that morons like Rand Paul and his followers think is more destructive to my family than the moral lesson that we are weak and inferior because my wife, a public school teacher, can't magically conjure up some great, high-paying alternative. The idea that she'd rather sit on her ass and collect than work is an insult based on nothing, since you never met her, don't know her, and can't begin to guess at her character.<br /><br />But don't let that stop you. You never do.<br /><br />Only on Wall Street can you ruin the world and be rewarded with a big fat bonus. Real teachers, nurses, social workers -- we know reality from fantasy because we can't afford not to.<br /><br />The fantasy IS the reality to the GOP, just like the ginned-up paranoid fantasy of armed jihadists posing as Mexican fruit pickers so that big business cronies can put up fences that catch no one and produce nothing but political fodder for extremists. Or the fantasy that Saddam Hussein must have somehow been responsible for 9/11. Or the fantasy that the President is a Muslim spy who was born in Africa.<br /><br />Another whopper of a fantasy is this Reagan worship. This man had some strengths but connecting well with reality was never among them. Trust me, I've read his autobiography and you haven't; it's all in there. Ronald Reagan did the opposite of what his worshipers think he did, but they don't care. In fact, Reagan himself bloated the federal government, expanded its payrolls, while at the same time deriding "welfare queens" as somehow being responsible for the fiscal problems of the nation. It was Reagan who called Medicare "Socialism," and took money from Joe McCarthy as a PAID FBI informant to finger left-leaning writers in Hollywood during one of the darkest and most shameful periods of American history.<br /><br />These are your leaders, not mine. I don't need a mountain of statistics to remind me that Reagan was a fraud, that Sarah Palin does not know Africa is not a country, and when asked what newspapers she reads to stay informed, replies "I don't know. All of them." She thinks the First Amendment is violated when someone criticizes her, but it's OK to ban books in Wasilla when they don't appeal to her narrow sense of right and wrong.<br /><br />Your leaders ruined the economy through deregulation, left a mess for the Democrats to clean up, blamed them for the hard choices they were too chickenshit themselves to make, decided that helping people struggling without health insurance protections was less important than handing Obama a "Waterloo."<br /><br />The Republicans are the ones who explode budgets and balloon deficits. The last balanced budget came from Clinton. How did you thank him for doing what you now say is the holiest job a president can do? You impeached him for denying a marital affair. You Republicans did that, not me. I was an adult. Men have affairs, I said. This is not a state matter. No, you said, his penis his more dangerous than Osama bin Laden, more important than our economy.<br /><br />It is the Republicans today fighting to keep credit default swaps and esoteric derivatives trading unregulated. It is Republicans in the top 1% who are living in incredible luxury, best ever, better even than a decade ago. The pain is only for the people, and the Left.<br /><br />The GOP is the party of Ayn Rand, of naked self-interest, and of teabaggers (self-described, not a slur) who promised jobs but instead chose to redefine rape so that a woman with a knife to her throat is somehow considered giving consent and so must carry his child to term. They do this with a straight face while describing themselves as protectors of American freedom. Rapist's freedom, I guess they mean. This is their idea of creating jobs, the plan they campaigned on.<br /><br />For today's Republicans, a public union giving in on every concession is not enough; they must also commit suicide and cease to exist.<br /><br />There IS a class war in America. There is blood in the streets and it's only just beginning. It is brutal, savage, cruel, un-Godly, and the wrong side is winning.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-75027727077808887172011-02-23T18:43:00.002-05:002011-02-23T18:51:25.935-05:00Thoughts For TodayIf you love your country you want it to thrive. If you have billions you should be grateful to live in a land where such fortunes are possible to make and keep.<br /><br />This country belongs to its citizens. Our legal system is as much mine as Donald Trump's. Every time he gets a permit to build something he is asking the people to share their common wealth in allowing him to do so. He has asked for a lot of these, BTW.<br /><br />Every time a major corporation sues someone for copyright or patent infringement, or breach of contract, etc., it is using our common wealth - the courts, which we all own equally - to do so.<br /><br />The billionaire uses all the same parts of America that the rest of us do, only in vastly higher quantities. Whether it's consuming more energy from the electrical grid, putting more cars on the collectively-owned highways, using more water, or utilizing the court system more often to address grievances, the rich use up more of this country's shared wealth than the poor. They should pay more because they use more, make more waste, consume more resources, and they couldn't make one thin dime without clean air, water, workable infrastructure, power grids, courts and police to guarantee legal redress...<br /><br />No, sadly, the rich want socialism for themselves and capitalism for everyone else. Oldest game in the book.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-76810285287388776832011-02-13T09:20:00.003-05:002011-02-13T09:41:35.911-05:00Sunday Morning Politics - GTL StyleMy new facebook friend Paul Erickson comments, <span style="font-style:italic;">"Dave, the way I see Obama is that he is truly a leftist. I think there are certain realities he has to live with being president that cause him to move from his leftist agenda. I don't know what kind of a strategist he is. He's come out on the wrong side of several areas: health care, unemployment, bank bail out etc."</span><br /><br />Now, I'm only a guy who cares, not a genius who knows all, and I won't comment on whether or not it's a good thing that my wife's unemployment check has allowed us to keep our house and feed our children since she lost her public-school teaching job. Nor will I attempt to untangle the merits or lack thereof regarding those bank bailouts.<br /><br />But Health Care is something I do know a lot about. So here's my response:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Paul, here comes a lengthy response, so brace yourself! I'd like you to read it with an open mind...<br /><br />I work in health care - psychiatric hospitalization, specifically - and have turned people away for lack of insurance and have watched people stumble out of the hospital in tears, untreated, because even with commercial insurance they could not afford their co-pays and deductibles, often in the thousands of dollars.<br /><br />From the perspective of a front line, boots-on-the-ground health care provider working with at least 15 separate insurance companies every goddamn day, including all the biggest ones, smaller ones, plus Tricare (military), Medicare (federal), and Medicaid (state), I can categorically state that here in Massachusetts the present is orders of magnitude better than the past. And I have heard not one complaint from any citizen, employer, or provider with ANY insurance plan, that the new system is either broken, arbitrary, or unfair.<br /><br />In fact, time after time, people lament that they wish they had Medicaid because only Medicaid provides the comprehensive services at low costs that they need. Some facilities in my city of Lowell will ONLY take Medicaid, because all other comers are too difficult to deal with and reject too many claims.<br /><br />Medicaid, BTW, has lower overhead, and is the model of efficiency compared to, say, Cigna, Aetna, Fallon, Harvard Pilgrim, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Modern Assistance, and the mother of all substandard insurances, United Behavioral Health (unfortunately, I am insured by UBH, so I'd better keep the crazy to a minimum). I wish you knew the guilt I feel, having to tell people exactly what their benefits are and how much money they will spend in co-pays and deductibles. It is not what I went into clinical social work to do, and it feels just terrible. Remember, the people who come to me are mostly NOT poor, and have private, employer-contracted insurances they can nevertheless not afford to use in many cases.<br /><br />In short, The HCR package, imperfect as it is -- as all laws are -- is a great leap forward. Plus, although the Right doesn't want you to remember this, it is a truly bipartisan creation, crafted from ideas born in both Democratic and Republican philosophies and think-tanks. The only reason the Republicans fought it is they wanted it to be "Obama's Waterloo," regardless of its merits or the fact that a few years earlier they pushed the same ideas.<br /><br />For Obama's opponents - I won't call them enemies, we're all Americans - politics trumped the needs of their constituents.<br /><br />The Obama Health Care Reform law is modeled in large part on Massachusetts' HCR ("Romneycare") law, with which I have abundant direct experience. The reforms have saved millions of dollars and thousands of lives. I know this firsthand. Also, the same companies that administer the so-called "government" insurance plans also offer identical commercial plans to employers for their workers. The only differences between the two are that the private plans have high co-pays and deductibles, arcane and wasteful administrative procedures, and result in denials of care fairly routinely even when people decide to shoulder the hefty debts they will incur -- and these are the WORKERS, understand, not the poor.<br /><br />Romney should be proud of his accomplishment. Instead, to win the votes of the "government-is-bad" Republican voters, he will either have to repudiate his proudest accomplishment or spin it as fundamentally different than Obamacare - which it is not.<br /><br />Irony abounds!<br /><br />One thing is for certain, and that is that there is no government takeover of anything. No death panels, government doctors, government clinics, packed waiting rooms and long waits for inefficient State-provided procedures. Everything feels and functions exactly as before, but is more equitable and protects us better. The insurers working in the government plans make generous, though regulated, profits, and companies compete zealously for those contracts. The new system balances profits with care in truly laudable ways -- UNLESS ---<br /><br />Unless you have an ideological bias against government providing health care funding in any situation.<br /><br />In this instance, and there are plenty of people who feel this way, I have little to say except that I care about my patients and any system that gets them the care they need at lower costs and with greater protections must be good. If government does it better, then it cannot be said categorically that government is "never the solution, always the problem."<br /><br />In this case, the truth is more complicated than slogans.<br /><br />Thank you for the pleasure of your ideas and intellect, and the privilege on this fine Sunday morning of debating with a person who so obviously cares for his country and fellow man.<br /><br />Peace!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-50714870485179915622011-01-23T22:11:00.001-05:002011-01-23T22:12:32.268-05:00Something About a Well-Played Game of Chess...The thing I admire most on the Right is the Republican ability to convince us that their biggest fears ought to be ours also. The worker is losing ground faster than an ice sheet in Alaska and the Republicans have them howling about deficits they neither understood nor considered a year or two ago, nor understand today.<br /><br />Ordinary citizens who have about as much chance of influencing their own economic futures as a fruitbat are screaming for the federal government to take back the stimulus funds that may get them a job next year. The irony, the mastery of it -- absolutely superb!<br /><br />Furthermore, Republicans are responsible for a huge portion of the debt from back when they were a majority and didn't need a red-meat-issue-of-the-month. The national debt could go to infinity for all they cared, when Bush was president and we lived in Republican Utopia.<br /><br />Still, ever since they lost the majority in Congress and Obama was elected, they have suddenly become (conveniently) morally bound to slash spending. And where do you think those cuts are going to come from?<br /><br />Can anyone say, "starve the beast?" This is the Republicans' game and has been for a very, very long time.<br /><br />And people are buying it!<br /><br />Financiers are having new boom times and these soon-to-be-former middle-class folks are screaming about the gold standard and the unconstitutionality of the minimum wage.<br /><br />C'est Magnifique!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-51001613044257451152010-12-12T10:34:00.003-05:002011-02-13T10:27:01.285-05:00And More! Meet Joe, The Gift That Keeps On Giving...This one speaks for itself, no intro necessary. I give you the estimable Joe:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Dave has a vested interest in the poor, because they make up his livelihood."</span><br /><br />Nice try. The ad hominem attack. Last resort stuff. Joe can't attack my facts, so he goes after my motives and integrity. Classic!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">You don't pay attention, Joe. The poor do not make up my livelihood any more or less than they make up an oncologist's or primary care doctor's livelihood. I admit anyone with insurance and a psychiatric problem grave enough to force profit-driven health insurance companies to open their bulging coffers and squeeze out a few nickels for treatment. Unless the patient is blessed with Medicaid, a literal lifesaver for anyone lucky and poor enough to qualify for government-funded health insurance, and they get better care that costs less.<br /><br />And BTW, I'm sure you didn't know this, but the companies administering not-for-profit Medicaid health plans are the same ones who run the fabulously lucrative private ones. There is no "government takeover of health care" underway. The difference is, a poor person's Network Health Plan has top medicine co-pays of $3. A middle-class worker's inferior, for-profit version of the same plan, using the same doctors and the same medication formularies, have top co-pays of $35. Take three medicines a month and you may be hit with a bill for over a hundred dollars, in addition to your hefty monthly share of your plan's premiums.<br /><br />You don't listen, Joe. You just find the sources you need to back up your pre-existing, ill-informed opinion, then march into battle.<br /><br />The people I serve are, I will say again and again, the same as me and you, and I've already said that, but you don't listen. Quote whomever you like.<br /><br />I'm not Don Quixote. If you insist on being a windmill I'll just have to give up jousting with you.<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-55091875530542577392010-12-12T10:09:00.004-05:002010-12-24T21:18:17.880-05:00Hey Joe, I Heard You Shot Your Argument Down (With Apologies To Jimi Hendrix!)Joe has asked a very good question, straight out of the Gun-Toting Liberal's toolbox for analyzing social problems. He asks, <span style="font-style:italic;">"Who benefits by the existence of a permanent underclass?"</span><br /><br />This merry-go-round is going to close soon, as I spent Saturday afternoon in a Quixotic attempt to joust with this human windmill and I don't intend to go around again today. I want to enjoy my weekend before the House Leadership repeals weekends outright as a communist government program.<br /><br />Ok. Joe asks, so the GTL answers. Here goes:<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Nobody, Joe, that's what I've been trying to say. There is no benefit to a permanent underclass, and we should do whatever we can to end it. Why do you always frame an argument in such a way that anyone who disagrees with you must obviously love social pathology and not want to end it? <br /><br />I’ve been trying to help you, Joe, but you aren't listening. One big problem here is that sore-headed, poorly-defined, anger- and prejudice-based assessments of the problem are not the best starting point. They might work for making fame and oodles of cash for Glenn Beck, Rush Oxylimbaugh, and Bible Spice, but not in the real world.<br /><br />Why are you getting your information about poor people from ultra-rich media head entertainers? Listen to people who know what they're talking about from first-hand experience. Like me. Hell, if you want a tour of the hated underclass to help you develop an actual first-hand opinion, I'll take a day off and bring you around to the world you have imagined, and you can decide for yourself if the imagined world and the real world align. That'll be up to you. I'll just drive. <br /><br />Right-wing policies cause far more social problems than they alleviate. So let's solve them. I agree with you 100%. No one benefits from a permanent underclass, Joe, but Officer Krupke was right - no one wants a fella with a social disease.<br /><br />So let's recalibrate your imagination to to allow a little oxygen and some facts in. Nobody in social services is benefiting like the businessman benefits, unless you consider shelter workers or AFDC social workers on low salaries to be benefiting. <br /><br />These people don't lay awake at night laughing at the stupid taxpayer. They lay awake worrying if tomorrow they'll come home from the shelter carrying scabies, bedbugs, or worse, as a consequence of doing the right thing and helping not the wealthy and powerful, but the neighbor in need. That, and paying the bills.<br /><br />I have a masters degree and am the clinical director of a psychiatric hospital program. My education and several thousand hours of training prior to licensing are at least equivalent in effort and sophistication to any financial management training program, but after a decade of success, the money man lives in Larchmont, and I live in Lowell. The finance man, BTW, is a stock character in my depression and anxiety program, and he agrees. What I do is at least as hard as what he does.<br /><br />Now, I'm not complaining, mind you, and I feel lucky and blessed by the privilege to be trusted by so many people in need and their families. There is definitely a deep spiritual reward. But my Christmas bonus this year, as it is every year, was a ten-dollar Stop n' Shop gift card. Now, I know it'll take more than ten dollars to talk you in from a sore-headed rant, but if you want, I'll give the entire bonus to you if you'll simply acknowledge that you have no direct experience in any of the things you are talking about here.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-20708014511544787762010-12-11T17:09:00.010-05:002010-12-11T18:51:12.436-05:00Feed Me, Joe! (And Feed Me He Does.)Damn. I really thought I was gonna convert Joe with that last post. Here's the last part of his reply:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">If you're offended by my comparison to slavery, consider this. You are spending lots of other people's money on people who, rather than saying thank you, bitch that they want more, more, more. In doing so, you are teaching not how to fish, rather addicting them to your fish. This you call help. If that's help, I want no part of it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Oh, Joe. <br /><br />Joey, Joey, Joey.<br /><br />You are talking about things you don't really know about firsthand. I am trying to help you see. I am reporting to you from the front lines, as a person equal in drive and intellect to yourself, who has taken the time to wade into the world of human misery and dysfunction firsthand. <br /><br />Please understand: I know dozens of the people you describe, maybe a hundred, of the perpetually unfit. I know them by their names and faces, and by their medical histories, their family histories. By the luck, good or bad, involved in the conditions and situations of their birth. By their communities, their religions, their education. By their exposure to trauma. By their deepest personal fears, their weaknesses and strengths.<br /><br />Hear me, O Israel! (I sometimes get grandiose. If you don't like it, read no further. I would NOT blame you in the least).<br /><br />THERE IS NO PREDATORY UNDERCLASS! THERE ARE NO HORDES OF LAZY, SPONGING, GOLDBRICKING SHIT-HEELS. NO ONE IS SITTING BACK AND LAUGHING. IT IS ALL IN YOUR MIND.<br /><br />OR MAYBE IN THE AIRWAVES. <br /><br />Or on satellites. Or in fiber-optic cables. Or in regular, old cables.<br /><br />Or in print.<br /><br />Or in texts.<br /><br />Or in tweets.<br /><br />Or maybe it's in all of them, all at once, day and night, forever and ever.<br /><br />Maybe it's in the sources of information you choose to trust!<br /><br />These people you talk about, the ones demanding more, more, more of our hard earned money. Produce one. Just one. <br /><br />These gripes from the Right come over and over and over, year in and year out, but are based on no discernible facts. Lazy non-workers demanding more, more, more. Show me one. JUST ONE.<br /><br />There aren't any hordes of whiners, and this is not the whiner's "mental recession" Republicans told us it was that we're living through. A million foreclosed homes didn't start with whining, but they sure ended that way. It might look like a mental recession from the front porch overlooking the eleventh hole fairway in Palm Beach. Hell, not only is it not a recession, it's boom times. Biggest bonus years ever down at the office, in fact. <br /><br />They are even further away from the people they condescend to than you are, so why trust them? Trust a primary source.<br /><br />Trust the Gun-Toting Liberal!<br /><br />Yee-HAH!<br /><br />But you are right about this: there will always be people stuck on or clinging to public assistance. So I think we should address the exorbitant benefits you imagine they receive as they kick their carefree heels down the sidewalk to their Cadillacs.<br /><br />Medicaid.<br />Food stamps.<br />Low-income housing at "section eight" rates of a third of their income.<br />Disability benefits, a thousand dollars a month perhaps, if they can prove they're truly disabled. The system that is used to identify disability fraud, by the way, should be a balm to every conservative's heart. Obtaining disability benefits is extraordinarily difficult, not that Glenn Beck or Bible Spice will ever know that firsthand. I have personally filled out lots and lots of applications and supporting documentation for people who are most often denied "disabled" status. And so has everyone I know professionally. And the story is always the same. <br /><br />Plus, they have to prove it every year, their disabilities, with written proof from physicians who, I assure you, have a lot more to protect from the consequences of committing fraud than you or I do. Rush Limbaugh probably hasn't hung out down at the social security office, where the people he despises and the programs he derides as wasteful are on public display each and every day of the week. He ought to. He would know what he was talking about, then.<br /><br />And so would you.<br /><br />That's about it. Free emergency telephone service, so they can call 911.<br /><br />Free membership at the YMCA.<br /><br />A bus pass. Maybe.<br /><br />Each one of these sorry folks, these gamers of the system, these diseased beings swindling you out of your hard earned pay, is a financial nuisance. A fly. An ant on an elephant's backside. On the other hand, consider the costs of letting them die slowly in the streets, which, you may argue, is their due. And I don't mean the financial costs, which are negligible in a rich country like ours, I mean the costs to our self-respect as a nation. <br /><br />Indulge me with this. Look at it my way for a moment: tell me about your job and I will trust your expertise, and listen with great due diligence to your insights about it. I will assume, as an intelligent and interested man, you are capable of achieving proficiency in your chosen field and have done so. Sincerely. I mean it. I acknowledge the likelihood that you are not a blight to society in any way, or a burden to the local constabulary, and so forth. An upright man. A <span style="font-style:italic;">Mensch</span>.<br /><br />Now, please accord to me the same respect.<br /><br />I know my job too. As well as you know yours, if we're to be mutually agreeable. And there IS a professional field of people whose job it is to interact directly with precisely the people you describe. And I am in that field, and that field is social work.<br /><br />I know my job as well as you know yours, if we're to be mutually agreeable.<br /><br />But wait, no.<br /><br />Come to think of it, you're right.<br /><br />I'm sorry, Joe. You're right and I apologize.<br /><br />There IS a seemingly intractable class of Americans who want more, more, more of our hard-earned money, who are never satisfied no matter how much of it they get, who never say thank you, who are "addicting us to their fish." <br /><br />And you are RIGHT, Man, they're NOT like you and me. They are not hard-working, individually responsible, morally upright men and women like us. <br /><br />They're out there, all right.<br /><br />I'll name them shortly, but first I want to rest for a moment with the observation of a very wise man whose name I do not know, who was right when he described these greedy ungrateful, un-American Americans as having "no soul to save, and no body to incarcerate."<br /><br />Breathe.<br /><br />Rest.<br /><br />Relax.<br /><br />Now here it comes...<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The images on your TV are just for show. The sound in your ears is a distraction. The fog, smoke. The real culprit is behind the curtain.</span><br /><br />It's big corporations, you #@%&#&$%!<br /><br />Not all of them. Maybe not even most.<br /><br />But it is the insatiable greed of the <span style="font-style:italic;">wealthiest people and institutions we have</span> that is killing us, not imaginary Welfare Queens.<br /><br />Hear me from the front lines! Take my dispatch, Goddamn you!<br /><br />Again, I know the people you are talking about personally. I bid a good weekend to several of them yesterday. Personally, face to face. And with great sincerity, I may add.<br /><br /><br /><br />I will not stop trying to help you see, Joe.<br /><br />I believe in you Joe, and all you other Joes out there.<br /><br />I will not stop trying.<br /><br />But this is so much fun, who would want it to stop?</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-17351141182107378332010-12-11T15:23:00.006-05:002010-12-11T16:53:52.662-05:00Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions (with apologies to Al Jaffee!)Okay. So. If you read my last post you have some understanding of the debate. Here is, in part, Joe's response to my ideas about fairness and wealth:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Unhealthy societies cost money as well. Back two centuries ago, during the days of slavery, slave owners had a fairly healthy expense of keeping their slaves fed, clothed and housed. They managed to do it in such a way that the slaves had nowhere to go. Does this sound at all like anything that we're doing today with social programs?"</span><br /><br />Well the short answer is no. But the GTL ain't about the short answer. Here's my reply:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Joe, I would find your comparison between slavery and a social safety net odious too, if it weren't so funny. Thanks for the laugh and for reducing your own credibility. That's mighty generous of you! Can you bake me a pie too? Boston creme, please. With lots of creme and chocolate frosting. LOTS of chocolate frosting!<br /><br />Once again, I am talking about millions of people's lives, not what ought to be, in principle, in a theoretical society. I am a social worker and I understand, directly and firsthand in a way you do not - that is to say through direct knowledge and experience - that there IS a sliver of society that falls into an entrenched pattern of dependency, as you correctly identify. Slaves, if you will. Fine. And they sure are ugly to look at, and not just on TV where you see them. It's been my discipline's mission, and my life's work, to ennoble humanity and end that pattern, but not by throwing a drowning man an anvil and lecturing him on my superior swimming ability. <br /><br />Here's where you and I differ: Because of these inter-generational failures, the obvious outliers of an imperfect system, a paltry fraction of a percent, you would throw out the whole safety net itself. If your stance is not ideologically-driven, why don't you also say we should throw out capitalism because of the free-markets' own sliver of bad actors, like Bernie Madoff, disgraced by his own greed and with the lifeless corpse of his son, dead this morning from suicide, at his feet?<br /><br />Asking "should a rich man's dollar be taxed twice (or three times, four, etc)?" is a statement about principles. In practice, while the decision to place a higher tax burden on the rich might make them hot under the collar, it does nothing to their standard of living, though it raises EVERYBODY else's. When the rich were taxed at 90% it was still a fabulous ride, a hell of a lot better than being middle or lower class, and the rivers of champagne and fois gras flowed like water. There were Bentleys and blonde dames and fancy restaurants and vast bank accounts and world-wide jet-setting.<br /><br />There was also infrastructure and good public schools for the rest of us. There was progress in realizing the nation's mission statement (see: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution">Preamble, United States Constitution</a>). That progress has now been reversed. And the tea baggers, the angry admirers of the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs and Bible Spice Mama Grizzlies, are doing their dirty work for them. The only actual billionaires demanding attention without hiding behind PACs and front groups with names like "Free American Taxpaying Freedom-Lovers for Freedom" are begging the rest of us to take some of their wealth back, for the good of society. <br /><br />You can't believe in fair play and equality without acknowledging that they are not possible without a level playing field. It's the corruption of that level playing field that the rich intentionally obscure with semiotic sleight of hand when arguing policy. They tilt the playing field themselves and then spend a lot of money to trick the players into sending the referees home.<br /><br />Unless everyone starts at the same starting line, we should not be talking about the finish line; bootstraps and welfare moms and lazy beggars and so forth. The laziest man on Earth is the one who inherits vast wealth. Everyone knows that. Or more importantly, the rich man knows that, and wants us not to.<br /><br />I'm tired of people using their government-protected rights to free speech to say government sucks. My government does not suck. <br /><br />I have treated thousands of mentally ill people. Thousands. And most are not at the bottom of society at all, they're people with insurance cards, like you and me. The ones without insurance - in other words, those with incomes too low to afford it, but not low enough to be saved by the safety net - don't show up. They drink or coke themselves to death in quiet desperation in suburban tract homes that look as intact from the outside as the day they were built, while their owners' lives and our society have hollowed out from inside.<br /><br />It might've been you Joe, who commented in Miguel's space, "what is it about Liberals and suffering?" If not, I apologize. If so, let's be clear: standing by doing nothing while others suffer is not a sign of high moral character. Worse, continually enhancing the wealth and power of the already wealthy and powerful while AT THE SAME TIME standing by doing nothing while others suffer is just... well... fucked.<br /><br />Fucked, I say. How ya like my bathos? <br /><br />Now how about that Boston creme pie?</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-56725747126385509132010-12-11T09:12:00.004-05:002010-12-11T09:54:00.360-05:00For Joe, Who Loves Business and Opposes Government.Joe, healthy societies cost money. You can't have a safe neighborhood, a stable bank account, reliable electric and telephone service, courts that give recourse to the law equally, schools that prepare kids to become responsible and self-reliant adults, clean water, safe medicines, untainted foods... without lots and lots of money. This is the case everywhere. And almost everywhere, people do NOT have these things.<br /><br />People on the Right tend to talk about taxes in ideals, as in, "it's not the role of government..." or "people shouldn't rely on institutions..." These are legitimate thoughts and are of course true. They also tend to focus on government waste, inefficiency, lousy programs, etc. as areas to tap for needed funds for the legitimate purposes of government.<br /><br />But in business, if an idea, a product fails, it gets shut down, changed, or the business as a whole fails. In government, there is no luxury of starting over - or failure, for that matter. You can start a business a thousand times. You can fire workers. Increase, decrease, or eliminate benefits. Change prices. Put profits in foreign bank accounts, thus improving the bottom line. <br /><br />But we started our government once. And we did a damn good job.<br /><br />A digression, if I may: I am a social worker. I work waaaay down on the ground where the stomachs and assholes (not the personalities, the actual body parts) dwell. It's not enough to say that government should create the conditions for free markets and then get the hell out of the way. We can't fire citizens no matter how poorly they work or how sick or dysfunctional they become. If we try, they end up costing us more, as social failure is far more expensive than even the most generous nanny state. Even the bottom line supports liberal social policies, when spun out over the long term. <br /><br />The strong will always devour the weak, as in nature. Except that in nature, millions of years of evolution produced the conditions that prevent the shark from eating every last herring (or whatever), whereas in our business world, it's shark eat herring and herring be damned. Only government prevents the annihilation of the herring. You and I are the herring, BTW. <br /><br />Jesus, can I beat a metaphor to death or what?<br /><br /><br />Unlike business, every adjustment in government has to be done while the populace experiences the effects of the failures or successes and vicissitudes of daily progress in real, live time. Also, the mission statements of businesses do not include protecting everyone from injustice or providing for the common welfare. It's hard to make a profit without losers as well as winners.<br /><br />And it should be so. And it is good -- as long as the powerful are prevented from the outright purchase of government - which, I think we can agree, has more or less happened in America. Especially since "Citizens United," a case that was not about citizens but PACs, and no one was united at all.<br /><br />The Right tends to think of wealth as achieved in spite of, not because of, government programs. If this were true the whole world would be as wealthy as we are, because the one things that separates America IS our form of government and its specific programs. The irony is that the very protections that keep capitalism from devouring itself and collapsing are the ones which the business class hate the most. If CEOs were mandated to consider a business cycle of, say, two generations, as opposed to tomorrow's stock price or next month's financial reports, the society would be healthier and there would be far greater sustainability. Greater equality and social justice would be a by-product. <br /><br />The petroleum industry is a perfect example of the disconnect. Only by looking at the short term does it make any sense to pursue more and more oil. We know someday it'll be over, but the markets open at 8:00 on Monday and if the business is to thrive, it has to do so NOW. And, as in any war, in business you go to war with the Army you have, as Rumsfeld once said.<br /><br />Creating a more perfect union and deriving a steady flow of profits are often in conflict. Which is why both the markets and the government have their own experts, their own proven methods. The canard that a successful CEO is by definition a qualified political leader is just that, a canard. Looked at another way, on December 4, 1933, Joe Kennedy was the greatest criminal drug dealer in America. On December 5, 1933, he was a patriarch of a majestic political dynasty. Quite a transformation, except that the only difference was the ending of Prohibition. The man's abilities and qualities were the same.<br /><br />I have great sympathy for those on the Right, whose answers to tough problems are simpler and more viscerally satisfying. The problem is, as history tells us, when spun out to their logical conclusions, the strong will always exploit the weak until either revolution, monarchy, oligarchy, fascism, or totalitarianism prevail. Good policies that include a robust social safety net and vigorous regulation of business prevent revolutions of the unwashed masses, and keep the CEO safely and happily in his mansion and boardroom.<br /><br />And that takes lots of money. Dillinger robbed banks because that's where the money was. We tax the rich for the same reason.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-6235714906198815082010-11-13T20:41:00.002-05:002010-11-13T20:48:54.224-05:00"Who Benefits?" Is Not An Ideology.We start on facebook (of course), where I posted, <span style="font-style:italic;">"Letting the arsonists try and put out their own fire is a dumb plan, even for the American voting public. But at least with shared power the Republicans railing against "guv'ment" in general will be shooting at their own feet, too. Shame on grownups in the GOP for entertaining the idiocy of "mama grizzlies" and letting other nutcases into power. Now we'll see if they can tame 'em, too..."</span><br /><br />My facebook friend and sparring partner Matthew responded, <span style="font-style:italic;">"sometimes Dave...I cant tell if you are too much into your ideology, hyperbole, or have no clue. lol. said with love."</span><br /><br />Okay. Here's my reply, and I hope you'll indulge me...<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Of course, Matt. Taken that way too. And be honest. You did not laugh out loud. You should have said LQTM, laughing quietly to myself... but hey, we were on the subject of hyperbole...<br /><br />Listen, man. I don't have an ideology. I think for myself. I am a member of no party and the only wing I like is the chicken wing, and it better be hot as hell, with bleu cheese on the side, and celery - old school, upstate new york style.<br /><br />I have until now come down on the side of the worker, as opposed to the person who inherits the company from his daddy. To me this is common sense. Protect the worker and not his bosses' bosses' bosses' boss - not because of ideology, but because his way of life needs protection and his CEO does not. It would be foolish to minister to the CEO's interests. He's doing just fine and always will.<br /><br />There is no society of organisms in nature wherein the weak exploit the strong. None. It is always the other way around. The middle class didn't get lost somewhere on a road trip. It has been systematically poisoned and destroyed. Who benefited? Answer that, and you have the answer to the big questions.<br /><br />As far as having a clue... Our nation is in deep trouble, our infrastructure crumbling, our middle class evaporating... but it's the very best of times for some, and they are laughing at both of us. That's a clue. You should take it, too. Said with love, Boyo.<br /><br />Want to know what happened to your country? Look at who is prospering, and there you will find what happened to your country. There are winners and there are losers. Once upon a time, the American people reasoned that "winner take all" may not be the best approach to creating a stable nation... for this reason, it is no surprise that the "golden age" of America coincided with the heyday of the labor movement, and tax rates far higher for the wealthy than anything the "Commie" Obama harbors in his wildest dreams.<br /><br />My "ideology" is: we should call things what they are. The American worker is toast. When will our country be healthy again? When the middle class is gaining back the ground they lost. Then, and only then.<br /><br />And using "who benefits?" to find the source of the problem is not just for your country - it applies to any country, in any era. When systems of great inequality and suffering prevail, look to where the money goes - and there's your culprit. Count up the millions of foreclosed homes, and look at the Wall Street bonuses coming out higher than ever this year. Look who got richer when the economy tanked.<br /><br />The deregulation folks. The GOP. Wall Street.<br /><br />Frankly, I don't see hyperbole or ideology or cluelessness in any of this. But LOL?... ... puh-lease!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-84007066160337487832010-09-11T12:07:00.007-04:002010-09-11T14:35:51.642-04:00One More Time, With Feeling... Ed and I Go At It Again.<span style="font-weight:bold;">Another exchange from facebook, brought here and presented by the GTL for your dining and dancing pleasure:</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />On Friday morning, September 10, 2010, Ed posted a link on his facebook page, stating: "I am flying the American flag in a moment of remembrance for 9/11." <br /><br />A commendable sentiment, but with a Jingoistic edge, I thought. I responded, "Fly a flag for all the nations that lost souls on that day, not just ours." Ed responded with a rather sarcastic and puzzling post, "Not sure what other countries were attacked by terrorists on that day, but they should be honored as well."</span><br /><br />Here's my reply:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Once again Ed? Nowhere do I say any other countries were attacked on 9/11. Please stop doing this. The straw man routine is crude and disingenuous, not to mention tiresome. My goal in these debates is to try to convince you to consider my opinions and ideas sincerely. To compare and contrast our philosophies and ideas in an effort to arrive at a reasonable set of solutions to real problems -- not to get zingers in and play at innuendo. I realize you are an adept and cunning arguer - but you needn't use a battering ram when a doorbell will suffice.<br /><br />You're "not sure what other countries were attacked?" Really? You mean you actually think other countries "might" have been attacked on 9/11, you just forgot? Either you're confused, intentionally condescending, or employing a rhetorical flourish intended to mock my statement. I respect your intellect and know you know better. I am being sincere and would rather not be mocked, especially as you are a person who seeks to live by the doctrine of loving one's enemies, and believing that God loves all people, not just Americans. <br /><br />When Americans are killed in terrorist attacks overseas, we fly U.S. flags at those sites. What is wrong with honoring the dead of other countries on this sad day, in addition to our own? The capitol of the world was attacked. There's enough grief to go around. Plenty of room for everyone.<br /><br />New Yorkers are America's welcoming committee. If we are to assert our country's glorious exceptionalism in the arena of nations, we should at least be as hospitable to guests (and foreign cultures) as Islam instructs all Muslims to be in theirs. <br /><br />People from everywhere, Muslims too, were killed on 9/11 -- not by Islam -- but by 19 crazed terrorists. The world as a whole is a colder, harsher place because of their depraved murderousness, and the misguided belief in the superiority of their own religion that fueled it.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-3102440838840304772010-09-11T11:03:00.005-04:002010-09-11T12:18:48.278-04:00Remembering the Dead, and the Living.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkWv12WUfE4C01Qz7Lyjl5SAEqdIakV9WWLQJC66vQNXxxnrhhScRG5pfPmQF2Flyr_Ab5I2g32A2bUbKXZvqffhyphenhyphenf14fwVSHcQpPNQ0LKP4bhmKjX7TqJz4ghrso63iuvTlL/s1600/wtcnightsm.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 318px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkWv12WUfE4C01Qz7Lyjl5SAEqdIakV9WWLQJC66vQNXxxnrhhScRG5pfPmQF2Flyr_Ab5I2g32A2bUbKXZvqffhyphenhyphenf14fwVSHcQpPNQ0LKP4bhmKjX7TqJz4ghrso63iuvTlL/s320/wtcnightsm.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515684754772331698" /></a><br />I grew up going to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade on weekends with my father, watching the twin towers rise slowly, one floor at a time over lower Manhattan, from the most beautiful and iconic vantage point on Earth. In hot or cold weather, under cloudy, sunny, or rainy skies, at dusk when the bright window-eyed skyscrapers flecked the river with gold, or on a chilly morning like today's in a bright, brisk wind. These images are framed in my mind as indelibly as the sight of my own hand, now, in front of my face. <br /><br />Today I want to mourn the loss of these buildings and the thousands who died within them, alongside everyone who lost something - or everything - on that sad day nine years ago. But saddest of all, I want to mourn the loss of the American spirit of tolerance and civic pride, our love of humanity, our belief in the saving strength of our unique form of government, and our embrace of the people of the world who came to New York - and still come - looking for a decent waking life and a better dream for the future. <br /><br />Today that dream is receding beneath the crushing ugliness of our new post-9/11 culture, the fearfulness that shuts our eyes, minds, and hearts, the re-emergence of the lynch mob as the quintessential group expression of freedom, and the utter failure of the moneyed media to back us away from the abyss and ask us to listen for the quiet voices, the better angels of our nature.<br /><br />Please remember with me that Muslims also died in those attacks, and that Americans come in all shapes, sizes, cultures and customs. Please remember with me that we are all children of one earth, of one universe, and for those of religious faith, of one God.<br /><br />I want us to be clean again, purged of hate and fear. I want more than anything for this to be a day to remember love, to feel love, to forgive, and to ask forgiveness.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-57451672319744281702010-09-09T08:18:00.002-04:002010-09-09T08:27:12.417-04:00Where The Hate Comes From... A Liar, Not An Idiot.A word on Rush Limbaugh:<br /><br />Isn't this the man who said it was treason to criticize the president during wartime? This goes beyond criticism into outright paranoid ranting. It's one thing when some rural bumpkin evangelist threatens to burn a Koran. It's another when the most powerful man in radio, who holds enormous influence over the Republican Party and its rabid followers, says this sort of stuff, and is met with silence by the MSM.<br /><br />Shame on the media whores and hairdos who can't find enough courage to state the truth. And shame on anyone foolish enough to believe this self-aggrandizing weasel. Here's the money quote:<br /><br />"America was built by people who reject everything Imam Obama stands for, reject everything Imam Obama is doing...Obama's propaganda is the propaganda of failed, dead regimes: the old Soviet Union, Cuba. Obama's railing against capitalism. He's railing against private property...Barack Obama is the antithesis of the founding of this country...Had Obama been around at the founding of this country and had he been known, he would be a joke in American history books today." -- Rush Limbaugh<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Thanks to Slate's Doonesbury Daily Dose for the above quote.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-69665124921190315762010-09-03T16:26:00.006-04:002010-09-03T20:58:38.429-04:00Cancer?! Are You Sure It's Cancer?Ed and I have been having one hell of a time debating politics on facebook. As part of my pledge to not spill my political seed (as it were) on the dusty ground of facebook, I report here parts of an exchange (with edits) that held my attention for far too many hours this week:<br /><br />Ed writes:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The US government is a lethargic, cancerous growth that continues to sap the vitality out of the country via taxes and is one of the most inefficient allocator [sic] of resources that exists. </span><br /><br />To which the GTL replies:<br /><br />If our government is a cancer, then the Constitution is the original mutated cell itself. I reject this, in the strongest possible terms. I believe, as the Preamble instructs us both, that the purpose of our government is to always strive toward a more perfect union, without corruption, which protects the welfare of all, and in which any one individual is equal in the eyes of the law to any other.<br /><br />There is nothing cancerous about the Constitution.<br /><br />If you think the government is a cancer, then you obviously must not agree that our nation has an exceptional destiny in the world. Remember, the United States of America is not a piece of land (the land was here first). It is not the people (there is no special American "race" or "gene"). The one and only thing that makes our nation great is <span style="font-style:italic;">the government for which the founding fathers devised the blueprint</span>, with its emphasis on individual rights and the rule of law, the system of checks and balances, and the guarantee of equality. <br /><br />With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely Ed, that kind of inflammatory rhetoric will only convince impressionable types that government cannot be fixed or improved, or worse, that it <span style="font-style:italic;">shouldn't</span> be improved as a matter of principle. Once again, I reject this view, principally because the Constitution itself, in its Mission Statement - The Preamble -- seems likewise to reject it. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />The cancer is greed, not government</span>. Your favorite book does not say, "inefficient, bureaucratic government, with its expensive entitlement programs that discourage free markets and individual initiative, is the root of all evil." No. The Bible quite presciently (given how small an amount of money actually existed in ancient times) identifies the love of money as the root of all evil.<br /><br />And so we know what evil looks like. And no one loves money more than those who choose to make the pursuit of tremendous loads of it their life's work. And the Mecca of those who put money first is Wall Street.<br /><br />I KNOW you meet lots of people in your line of work about whom you must have serious moral and ethical concerns. I, on the other hand, know only a handful of investment bankers, venture capitalists, insurance executives, etc. Nevertheless, though the sample is small, they all say the same thing, with only slight variations:<br /><br />Fuck the government.<br /><br />Fuck the poor.<br /><br />If I don't want to share I don't have to.<br /><br />They acknowledge the failure of supply-side "Voodoo" Reaganomics, but want it to continue because it benefits them and their class. <br /><br />And they all vote Republican.<br /><br />Are you in, or are you out? With the Rich, or with the rest? Jesus chose his side. What side will YOU choose?<span style="font-style:italic;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-89305957213107472802010-08-24T17:45:00.006-04:002010-08-25T06:41:54.491-04:00My Friend Ed And I Disagree (and it's ok).Ed and I are New Yorkers by birth and met in college. Earlier today he wrote the following about the plans for a Muslim cultural center a few blocks out of eyesight range of the Twin Towers site:<br /><br />"this cultural [center] does not need to be so close to ground zero. It is not about religious freedom but rather about being sensitive to those who lost loved ones on 9-11."<br /><br />Here's my reply:<br /><br />There is no mosque planned for ground zero. None at all. No minarets over downtown, no muezzin calling believers to prayer over loudspeakers... and no line of sight between the twin towers site and Park 51. Also, the people building the cultural center are 100% American, like you, and me. If you don't like the idea of a Muslim outreach and community center-- don't join. When they come for my neighbor, they are coming for me. My Muslim neighbors' freedom is tantamount to my own. Be an American and stand up for the rights of your neighbors.<br /><br />BTW, loved hanging with you and meeting your beautiful family. Go Bearcats! Go Tau!<br /><br />Lest one mistakenly conclude that Liberals don't care about what's right, or that Conservatives are the sole custodians of morality in America:<br /><br />Ted Olsen, Republican legal genius extraordinaire, whose wife died in the 9/11 attack, strongly rejects the idea that banning the cultural center is the proper way to show respect to the memory of our lost loved ones. In fact, we can show the dead our respect by NOT succumbing to racism and religious intolerance. Allowing bigots of any stripe to prevail would be the ultimate disrespect of their sacrifice.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-18453463818716233322010-08-24T15:45:00.005-04:002010-08-24T16:18:19.974-04:00Obama: Christian Racist or Muslim Extremist? The GOP Can't Decide.Is ANYBODY in the Mainstream Media fact-checking the paranoid extremists at all anymore?<br /><br />Remember when the controversy over the President's religion centered on his twenty-five year relationship with the incendiary black preacher <a href="http://a.abcnews.com/Blotter/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4443788&page=1">Rev. Jeremiah Wright</a>? <br /><br />I seem to recall the deep "concern" on the part of his GOP adversaries that Obama's membership in Rev. Wright's Christian congregation -- and the pastor's speeches daring to call attention to America's racist past and present -- were proof of Mr. Obama's <a href="http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/barack-obama-has-deep-seated-hatred-wh">deep-seated fear and hatred of whites.</a><br /><br />The question is almost too obvious to ask (which means of course that no one in the mainstream media has asked it). Nevertheless, here we go:<br /><br />How can a person with a demonstrated twenty-five year history of Christian church attendance and a close relationship with a Christian minister suddenly become a radical Muslim?<br /><br />If you're like me, the answer is obvious: He can't. He isn't. <br /><br />Shame on every media hairdo who lacks the brainpower and guts to cut through the distractions, the flim-flam and lies, and do the sacred job of telling truth to power, and providing the people with the facts they need to fight against the lies of the Powerful.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-84982912772559915802010-08-20T11:28:00.003-04:002010-08-20T11:39:10.949-04:00Wake Up, America!There are no Islamic foreigners building mosques at ground zero.<br /><br />1. The site is not at ground zero, and is not visible from ground zero.<br /><br />2. The site is not a mosque, it is a community center. Pool, gym, dancing lessons... and some prayer space. Not a mosque. No minarets over Wall Street.<br /><br />3. No foreigners involved. THE BUILDERS ARE AMERICANS.<br /><br />Thank God for <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/19/franken-mosque-disgraceful/">Al Franken</a> and <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/">Keith Olberman</a>, for telling it like it <span style="font-style:italic;">really</span> is.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-9057078036742469512010-08-13T22:35:00.001-04:002010-08-13T22:37:14.550-04:00capitalism. Say it soft and it's almost like praying.Matt, I know a lot of people feel we have disastrously veered off course in this country, and they use the language of freedom fighters as if the government had been overthrown by enemies and saboteurs. They speak of unprecedented constitutional crises.<br /><br />As hard as it may be for people to stomach, the Democrats and Obama (I'm not a Dem, BTW) swept into power fair and square by a margin of millions of votes from a nation desperate for their ship of state, riddled with holes and sinking fast under a thick flak of Voodoo Reaganomics (since discredited by none other than Greenspan himself) and Republican deregulation and derivatives trading schemes, to remain afloat.<br /><br />To me, the only new or shocking thing about Obama is his race. He is a far more centrist, level-headed thinker than his predecessor. His "socialist" tax plan is to roll back the tax rates to those instituted by Ronald Reagan. Some Socialist!<br /><br />But I digress. In my view, the REAL constitutional crisis is the total takeover of our government and economy by Big Business and the Rich, who own the media and are by far a right-wing bunch. So they howl about "liberal media" -- a canard to distract us -- while it's their own Limbaughs and Becks and O'Reillys who are the real dominant force... there is a media bias in this country, and it's hopelessly Right-Wing... and instead of holding the Big Business predators accountable, we spin ourselves into hysterics in a stupid "culture war" that leaves the goal totally undefended.<br /><br />Which works too beautifully to not have been the plan from the beginning.<br /><br />My political policy is this: whatever strengthens the middle class is good for the country, whatever weakens the middle class is bad for this country. There is no organism in nature in which the weak exploit the strong. Think of that. The powerful, the rich, always go too far -- if no one stops them.<br /><br />I also appreciate Capitalism. I love it. Really. Capitalism is the greatest economic source of energy in the world. Capitalism is great because it rests on competition. Under Capitalism the businessman says (unless he's not REALLY a Capitalist but a... fascist...?), 'Hey, I'm an energy company. Regulate fossil fuels all you want. Write the strictest pollution laws you can, ones which our great-grandchildren will thank us for. Protect the planet, the oceans, the ice caps. It doesn't matter how costly the upgrades willl be, because we have CAPITALISM! COMPETITION! And Capitalism posits that if I can't figure out a way to profit despite regulation in the public interest-- then someone else who can, WILL! And I won't! And that's okay! That's entrepreneurship!"<br /><br />Capitalism. Say it soft and it's almost like praying.<br /><br />Capitalism is like Plutonium: incredibly powerful and capable of creating virtually limitless capacity for expansion (on the one hand), but also highly dangerous and requiring enormous, redundant safety apparatus (on the other hand) in order to not be destroyed by the very power we would harness and control for good.<br /><br />Capitalism thrives under regulation because regulation protects the market from excessive risk and mitigates the risk of using such powerful fuel. Regulation is also intended to fol the greedy and corrupt wall street raider from doing too much damage. Remove all that protection and we have... Bush economics...in fact, we live today in Republican Heaven... GOP Utopia... because they got what they wanted. Deregulated industry, fear on Main Street, and war all the time.<br /><br />Why aren't they happy?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11304759.post-35705915885351623462010-08-13T19:25:00.002-04:002010-08-13T19:36:45.394-04:00I Waste My Blogging Juice At Facebook.<span style="font-style:italic;">I have readers, I know, because you come up to me and ask where I've been. Well, the title up there tells the story. I've been spilling my seed, as it were, politically as it were, over on people's comment streams on Facebook. Well, I just posted the following reply to a new friend who firmly believes in objective morality. The subject came up while chatting about Muslims' right to build mosques in American cities. It's edited a little. Hope you enjoy it. Give me some feedback and I'll respond!</span><br /><br />Matt, I also like your turn of phrase regarding defending the rights of those who would destroy us. I think this subject is a little wider than one lane and can allow a bunch of opposing ideas to co-exist and still bear operational fruit.<br /><br />I agree that there are ideologies which seek to destroy our country. In fact, there are lots of groups of Right-wing hotheads in our own country, talking about open war with the U.S. government, and calling on "patriots" to water the tree of liberty with blood. These are invariably sore-headed and benighted white men who feel, perhaps a bit justifiably, that the country isn't as nice a place to to be a white man in as it once was. <span style="font-style:italic;">(disclaimer: I am a white man.)</span> They offer a nice "vanilla" option to our menu of mostly brown terrorists, and interesting "period" clothing too, like the tricorner hat, for example.<br /><br />To me, these people are more dangerous than Islamists. For one thing, they fit in better (when they take the tricorn off). They also have voting rights and a stake in American culture. If Osama bin Laden walked down the street, we'd recognize him. Tim McVeigh, I'm not so sure.<br /><br />The question we arrive at, Matthew, is where we decide to curtail these dangerous groups' rights to speak and assemble. As you would surely agree, the Constitution is not a suicide pact and we have the unquestionable right to defend ourselves, and that includes the right to silence a group or arrest their leaders when it is necessary to national security.<br /><br />That necessity, under our constitution, is decided by the judiciary branch. If the Supreme Court denies your case, it's over. It ends. You stop funding the Contras or torturing gang leaders or water boarding Iraqis or whatever. God bless America.<br /><br />Even Conservatives can fathom that the constitution isn't "just a piece of paper," despite what their most recent president would have them believe. Taking away a human being's constitutionally-protected rights is no small matter. It is a grave and serious matter. In my line of work (psych hospitals) we can hold you in locked confinement for 72 hours against your will. If after 72 you still wish to be released, a judge comes to the hospital for a hearing. If the hospital prevails, you remain locked in. Otherwise, you are released at once.<br /><br />In practice, the hearings occur far less often than you would imagine. The hospital usually caves, knowing that the bar at which a judge will take away a patient's right to self-determination is very high. Frankly psychotic people have the same rights we do, as long as they are not a danger to themselves or others. You can wear a tinfoil hat to your hearing and soliloquize about the coming Alpha Centaurian Sex Monkey Invasion and still sleep in your own bed tonight. (Unless the Freemasons get to you!)<br /><br />So I know how precious the right to speak and assemble is. And we have to tolerate anti-American ideas. To be America, we must protect everyone's rights equally or they are not "rights." We can stop anti-American acts, but not ideas.<br /><br />That's why America is great. In America, think and say whatever you want, even if what you want is to destroy America. Just DON'T BREAK THE LAW.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0