I Told You So

I hate to say it but I told you so.

As we come upon the dog days all the pieces are falling into place for another Republican-engineered debacle. Once more the used-to-be routine business of running the country is about to be hijacked by a band of radicals bent on bringing our society to a grinding halt unless they get what they want. Or at least unless they prevent the people they dislike from getting what they want. And what the radicals want is the dismantling of the one entity that keeps us from becoming an epic Technicolor wide screen version of the Balkans: our duly elected federal government.

We used to be the envy of the civilized world. In the aftermath of the city-razing catastrophe of World War II that rendered almost the entire European continent a dazed refugee camp, we brought the planet back from the edge of social and economic disintegration. After the wholesale destruction and deadly havoc resulting from unrestrained conflict between ethnic and political groupings our wholly disparate yet united states worked together to forge a new economic engine that rebuilt a devastated hemisphere and eventually spawned a global economy. And we did it by ensuring that everybody had a stake in that progress. We created a social contract that included everyone from a geographic and ethnic jumble that made the Europeans look homogenous.

On the one hand we had the Free Market: Capitalists unfettered by any centralized direction of their resources and innovations. And on the other we had liberals who made sure the progress they made was regulated to prevent over exploitation of resources and included opportunities for all participants at every level of the ladder. When confronted with our greatest inequities we expanded that contract in the 60s to include people of color, women and the handicapped. All of this managed through the Federal Government and its resources.

Then came 1980 and our President, the “great communicator,” informed us that with everything confronting the country our one big “problem” was this same government. Now we’re being manipulated and controlled by his disciples whose only goal is to take the one government that inspired the Western world through thirty years of the Cold War and “drown it in the bathtub.”

We worked our way to the top of the heap from the forties through the sixties, leapfrogging over the Soviet Union by hammering out compromises and accommodations between owners and workers, unions and management, lefties and righties, whites and blacks. It wasn’t all kumbaya and group hugs. We never felt we had to like each other but just acknowledged that since we had to live together we might as well minimize the conflict and make deals. In fact, growing up in the fifties and sixties I got the impression that that was the “American” way: Tolerance, acceptance, respect and cooperation.

Quaint.

Now we’ve got a major political party whose single fundamental principle is that the other side has no right to incorporate their own beliefs as a component of their citizenship. Since the 80s, Republicans have been tapping into right wing loathing and paranoia by demonizing Democrats and Liberals, characterizing them as having no legitimate say in governing the country. While this may have been a winning strategy in the short term it has finally backed them into a corner: How can you compromise with "the devil" and remain true to the believers who sent you to Washington? This isn’t rabid frothing at the mouth from the fringe any more, it’s become the official party line. And since the election of the black guy, this extremism has gotten outright dangerous.

They have fashioned a perennially winning strategy — there are always angry people out there willing to vote for someone as angry as they are — but at the same time they've rendered themselves incapable of governing, a process, again, that requires tolerance, acceptance and compromise.
When you add this to the fact that the Bush presidency exposed the self-aggrandizing ineptitude of a sustained "governing" program built solely on excluding your political opponents from meaningful participation, it's to be expected that when one of those opponents begins to effect positive change the reaction will be shrill hatred and mindless opposition. 

"Governing" as we've always known it has been corrupted by more than just money and poisoned by more than just racial bigotry. I listed the American values I was raised with above. Which ones are these avowed “patriots” holding the rest of us hostage to?

Queers: A vignette for the times we live in

So these two guys (we’ll just call them Larry and Moe) are sitting in a bar across from each other at a booth. The remains of a just finished meal between them. They’ve just gotten a couple more beers. On the TV screen over the bar, the announcers at CNN or Fox or MSNBC are announcing and discussing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Prop 8 and therefore allow same sex marriages in California. Larry starts curling his lip in disgust and shaking his head in disapproval.

“This is wrong,” he says.

Moe: “What’s wrong?”

L: This gay marriage thing. I tell ya it’s wrong.

M: Yeah it is queer… (he chuckles at his own joke)

L: Nah, I’m serious. We shouldn’t be doin this.

M: Ahh why not, why shouldn’t they be as miserable as the rest of us? (this time he laughs out loud at his own joke)

L: Yeah, see, that’s part of the problem right there. You think it’s funny, you’re making jokes.

M: So? What else ya gonna do? Ya gonna get all pissed and miserable an start chewin the inside a yer mouth over it? You think yer gonna stop this?

L: Well I ain’t gonna just sit back an laugh about it.

M: So wattaya gonna do?

Long pause, Larry thinks it over, drinks some beer.

L: Well I don’t know what I’m gonna do, I just know it ain’t right.

M: They’re all grownups , they can do whatever they want. They ain’t hurtin anybody.

L: Yeah they are!

M: Who? Who they hurtin if they wanna get married to each other?

Larry thinks it over again.

L: Me.

M: They’re hurtin you.

L: Yeah, they’re hurtin me.

M: How?

L: How?

M: Yeah, how? How does what a couple queers in San Francisco do hurt you here?

Larry takes another slug of beer while he thinks it over.

L: Well I think it’s wrong. I think it ain’t right.

M: Who says it’s wrong?

L: Me. It’s wrong. See, I just said it. (now it’s his turn to chuckle at his own joke)

M: Oh I see, you say it’s wrong so they can’t do it.

L: Ahright, it ain’t just me. God says it’s wrong.

M: When did he say that?

L: I dunno it’s inna bible or someplace.

M: Well I ain’t no authority but I’m pretty sure it don’t actually say those exact words. Besides, so what if it does? Not everybody believes in the bible. Not everybody believes in the same thing as you or me.

L: Well they don’t have to but I believe it and if I think it’s wrong I’m supposed to say so, right? Ain’t I supposed to speak up when my religion says something somebody’s doin is wrong?

M: Well think and believe whatever ya want, just don’t expect everybody else to buy it. They got a right to do whatever they want just like you do.

L: Well it hurts me that people are doing something my religion says is wrong. They’re saying what I believe is wrong. There, that’s it: They’re denying me my religious freedom telling me I gotta shut up while they do the things they do. I got rights too, ya know.

Moe sits a long time thinking. Has some beer. Larry sits drinking, feeling like he got his point across. After a while Moe gets up from his seat. He’s got his ketchuppy steak knife in his hand. Instead of proceeding to the bathroom, he slides into the seat right next to Larry. In fact he forces Larry right up against the wall pinning one of his arms back against his side and he grabs Larry’s other hand and forces it down on the table. He holds the sharp greasy knife-edge right over Larry’s little finger.

L: Wha’… Whattaya doin?

M: I ever tell ya about my religion?

L: Whattaya mean, we went to Catlick school together. Twelve years.

M: Yeah, but that ain’t my religion now. Lemme tell ya what my religion now says. My religion now says that whenever somebody else tells me I gotta do what their religion says, I get to cut off one of their fingers. No wait, that's wrong. My religion says I HAVE TO cut off one of their fingers.

L: That ain’t no religion.

M: Yeah it is. It’s my religion. You telling me I can’t practice my religion the way I’m s’posed to? Now I gotta cut off two.

L: Two?!

M: Yeah, one for sayin I have to be against queer marriages because of what your religion says, and the other for saying I can’t follow my own religion and cut off one of your fingers.

L: Ahright ya made yer point.

M: Not yet I ain’t.

L: Cut this shit out!

M: Tell you what. My religion is merciful. I won’t cut off the thumb or the index finger. The first time. You need those and I want you to see the merciful side of my beliefs. I’ll just do the pinkie and ring finger. Ready?

L: Goddamit, cut it out!

M: You’re telling me I can’t practice my faith.

L: You can’t cut off my goddam fingers, no!

M: I have to cut ‘em off. God says so.

L: God never said that!

M: Well maybe not to you. Listen the harder you struggle here the worse it’s gonna be. Just close your eyes and… you know… pray.

L: “Y- you’ll go to jail for Chrissakes!

M: God’s law supersedes man’s.

L: You’ll go to jail?

M: I’m ready to pay the price for my religious beliefs. You can’t tell me I can’t follow God’s law… now hold still…

Moe presses gently but firmly down onto Larry's pinkie finger with the edge of the knife. Just when it's about to break the skin:

L: Ok. I get it.

M: Get what?

L: I get it. I get IT! I ain’t stupid.

Moe relaxes his grip and slides back. He goes back to his seat and has some more beer. Larry does all the stuff you would expect to get back his composure. He takes a good drink of his beer.

M: So ya wanna talk about abortion?

Quote of the day

Probably for the same reason that smug self satisfaction is now considered a virtue while poverty, sickness and hunger are vices.

-- gootch

Townhall.com According to The One's logic, Olympic gold medalists didn't earn their success.

(This is reprinted here from my FaceBook account)

OK, I just can’t keep my mouth shut about this one any more.

First, here’s what “the One” actually said:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Here’s fact number one: The passage “…you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen…” refers not to the business “you” built, but to the “…great teacher somewhere in your life…this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive…” and “…roads and bridges…[that] “Somebody invested in…” and finally “…the internet…” at least partially created by “…government research…” Again, it’s a fact that the passage in question refers to communally funded and built facilities that all of us depend on for our livelihood and well being.

Fact number 2: Back in September of 2011, Massachusetts senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren had already made a notable speech saying very much the same thing:

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Actually, fact number two is really a couple facts rolled into one: fact, Elizabeth Warren said very much the same thing, and two, each of the assertions made in the passage is a fact of life. Bridges and roads, police and fire protection, trained and educated work forces; these are all things paid for out of the common weal. Yes, the businessman pays a portion of those taxes but so do the rest of us. It’s part of the community in which we all live. Together.

But lest this appear too one-sided, Mitt Romney’s speech to the Olympian athletes at the 2002 games in Utah had something very similar to say about our interdependence:

You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities.

And by now, everyone has heard his more recent words reacting to the President’s speech:

[President Obama] describes people who we care very deeply about, who make a difference in our lives, Schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads. We need those things. We value schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads. You really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things. We pay for those things. The taxpayers pay for government.

The portion of the speech right after this segment is an attempt to paint Mr. Obama into a different corner by ascribing a different meaning to the President’s words, but the fact here is that both men said the same thing:

• President Obama: “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.
• Mitt Romney: “You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided…”
• President Obama: “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges.”
• Mitt Romney: “We value schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads. You really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things.”

Spin all you like, both men said the same thing, both believe in the same sense of community. I’m sure I’ll hear all about how the President has “demonized success and successful people.” He has demonized no one. He applauds success and hard work the same as Mitt Romney does. When you put their words side by side it’s objectively demonstrable that they both believe in the same work ethic that generates wealth and security in an American system that is exceptional in its opportunities for achievement and reward. It’s also objectively demonstrable through side-by-side comparison of those same exact words that both men are appealing to the common bond between us as members of a community. None of this is to say that individual success is necessarily "communally brought about," it's just that nobody creates anything in a vacuum. We're all responsible for our individual choices and their consequences, but with that in mind, try building that successful plumbing business in Somalia where the last thing you have to worry about is government regulation or taxation.

The image of either candidate as a threat to this system and community is in the subjective eye or judgment of the observer. And it is demonstrably false in that same side-by-side comparison of their exact words. Instead of characterizing the other candidate as an ominous threat out to destroy our way of life maybe we should be asking who’s profiting from our being at each others' throats over such an utterly fictitious distortion?

Cardinal Timothy Dolan: Voice of Moral Authority

Catholics are in full rebellion against President Obama. That’s right. The Catholic Church has joined the ranks of true mainstream Americans in their fight against the ever encroaching Socialist regime of the country’s first Mau Mau President.

And Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York is leading the charge. In recent months, his eminence has cut quite the figure on the national stage standing up to the federal government’s repression of Christ’s message by opposing our legally elected President's attempt to provide health care for sick people who can’t pay for it. Despite the prelate’s affable demeanor he’s turned out to be a formidable opponent, quick to call the President out for his oppressive imposition of federally mandated law on American citizens. The Popes have long since decided for their flock that any form of birth control (or anything else that makes sex merely pleasurable) is mortal sin, and the government has no right to force Church owned or managed businesses to provide the opportunity for such temptation to its employees, regardless of the fact that these entities operate in the free market along with everyone else in the country. Never mind that “rendering unto Caesar” bullshit. This is America.

The Church and its leaders have always been consistent and constant in their opposition to anything that breaks God’s Commandments and makes our nation a more secular hell. The Bible clearly says “Thou shalt not kill.” That means no abortions, ever, regardless of the mother’s health, or whether she was raped by her father. When things like that happen, you “make lemonade.” (And speaking of killing, who among us can forget their principled stance against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? Not to mention the Church’s universal opposition to the Viet Nam adventure.) ... (For that matter, who can remember them?) And in the spirit of Christ, the Cardinal displayed nothing but compassion for those true victims of the President’s failure to endorse the “One Man One Woman Marriage” stance: all those queers who are going to hell because they don’t believe what he believes. And of course, there was the Cardinal’s “act of charity” in Milwaukee, when he paid a pedophile priest $20,000 to go in peace. Or to just go. His subsequent denial of doing so is a model of Christian humility for the rest of us. To compare the sanctity and compassion of that charitable act with the government’s attempt to force Catholic employers to pay money for women’s health care when it could also be used to enjoy sex, is a sign of how far on the path to evil our country has drifted under its secular leadership.

Seriously, is it just me or has the selective intrusion of church leaders and spokespersons into the culture wars completely undermined their credibility as moral authorities and finally exposed just how politically calculated — and motivated — their sense of "absolute" morality is?

An Open Plea to Chris Matthews...

…Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow, David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, Wolf Blitzer, Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams and just about anybody else who gets the chance to interview political candidates and elected officials over the coming months.

Or, lets call this a Maybe Now? Redux. There’ve been some pixels and ink dedicated lately to the issue of partisan intransigence in the House and even the Senate. Initiated by an op-ed piece in the Washington Post last month by nonpartisan congressional historians Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, a number of writers, pundits and other public figures have alluded to the unwillingness, inability or just plain refusal of Republicans in elected office to compromise with Democrats in order to pass legislation. Some Republican candidates have been outspoken in their belief that their refusal to compromise is one of their strongest virtues.

I’m singling out Matthews in the title because Hardball has long been one of my favorite opinion shows and because he does a better job than most figures in his profession of cutting through an interviewee’s smokescreens and getting to the truth. He does this by refusing to accept answers at face value, and not treating their stated assumptions, prejudices or any unsubstantiated claims as facts. It’s this kind of incisive but even handed journalistic inquiry that is the only real hope of untangling the knot that our current government finds itself tied up in.

 

Obviously, Democrats will blame the current impasse on Republicans and Republicans will point to examples that put the onus on Democrats. But journalists have the tools and the opportunity to untangle the mess, exposing obfuscation and posturing while identifying genuine efforts at consensus building and problem solving.

 

The first question that has to be asked particularly of Republicans was suggested in the earlier post on May 4: “Do you believe that Democrats, Liberals and Progressives have a legitimate say – a legitimate right to participate – in governing the country?” The answer to this simple question will have profound implications for everything said afterward in the interview and for that individual’s subsequent words and actions. If the answer is “yes” then the follow-up question will have to be “Well what’s wrong with compromising then?” If the answer is “no,” follow-up questions can go directly to the heart of how they could possibly expect to get anything accomplished in a legislative body populated with people whom they regard as unfit to govern.

As long as our media outlets remain a welcoming platform for Republican legislators to simply excoriate their Democratic counterparts and ideas while repeating their own unchallenged bumper sticker talking points, they remain under no obligation to perform the duty they were sent to Washington for: to govern the country.

 

This doesn’t have to mean hunting down and harassing only Republicans. By all means, ask Democrats the same questions. But I have to say I got a damn good idea how different the answers will be: One need only read over a certain former Republican Speaker of the House's "memo" to his fellow legislators instructing them in the language they should use when describing their Democratic counterparts to gauge the respect GOP lawmakers have for their colleagues across the aisle. Besides, for thirty years, I’ve been cruising the radio dial, listening for the Liberal Media’s twisting of American ideals and strength of purpose. What I’ve heard is Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage and O’Reilly characterizing Liberals and Democrats as perverts and degenerates, nothing less than genuine enemies of America and of decency itself. Now that they run the Republican Party and dictate to their elected officials, how much does anyone think the GOP can actually accomplish as long as there are any Democrats left in government?

 

And further, how long will it take and -- more importantly -- how much will it cost, for the GOP to get rid of them all?

Insidious Moral Relativism Strikes Again

Right Wing pundits, commentators, theorists, champions and other gurus have for years belittled and denigrated their leftist enemies with the charge of "moral relativism." That cynical immoral "interpretation" of the Ten Commandments in order to justify whatever their narrow political objectives required at the moment. Proof of the moral bankruptcy of the left and all its adherents and sympathizers. The Ten Commandments are explicit, not open to interpretation and all moral choices are easily dictated by following these simple prescriptions to the letter.

Nowhere was this high handed judgment of everyone they disagree with more bombastically displayed than in Ross Douthat's May 9th column in the New York Times. The very title "Obama's Marriage Maneuvers" -- let alone the article itself -- was another self righteously scorching indictment of the President's utterly cynical playing of the gay marriage issue for political gain. According to Mr. Douthat, the President's refusal to take the moral high ground and plainly state his generally known support for gay marriage exposed him as just another craven, cynically driven politician afraid of alienating crucial blocs of voters.

Of course within hours of publication the President appeared on ABC News and in an interview with Robin Roberts declared his unequivocal support for the right of gay people to enter into same-sex marriage. Shedding his noncommittal "evolving" position on the issue and making such a forthright pronouncement was precisely the act that Mr. Douthat characterized in a roundabout way as taking a moral stance for something he believed in rather than engaging in political obfuscation for short term gain. 

And Mr. Douthat's response to the President's action? Just get a load of his blog entry from later that same day. Again, the title will save you the time: "The Success of the Gay Marriage Movement." In other words, the President made his announcement to appease the mounting pressure from gay rights activists.

So let me get this straight: Yesterday morning the President was exposed as a cynically calculating politician afraid of alienating crucial blocs of voters by refusing to take the moral high ground and plainly stating his support for gay marriage and today his plainly stated support for gay marriage has exposed him as just a cynically calculating politician caving in to a crucial bloc of voters. See the pretzel?

Wow, no wonder the right wing moral absolutists are ordained by God to lead our nation out of its moral turpitude.